American Gods by Neil GaimanMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I'm not usually an audio book person, the one person reading with just changing voice doesn't distance characters enough for me, so when I saw this was an ensemble cast, I jumped all over it.
I watched the show on Starz before listening to this and was pleasantly surprised at how closely the show follows the book, for the first 1/3 or so. I thought the beginning was endlessly fascinating but as the story goes on, my gods do the tangents get plentiful and looong. I started off listening really closely to the stories being told by the townsfolk Shadow encounters, thinking there was hidden meanings, clues, or foreshadowing but after more stories about moose, I just couldn't do it.
Listening to an ensemble cast was ear catching but listening to this "author's preferred" text, which I'm taking to mean little to no editing, gave it a very plodding pace. I think the show did a fantastic job cutting out what dragged for me and instead of having Shadow's wife kind of disappear for a good amount of time like she does in the book, having her travel with Mad Sweeney (view spoiler) to keep the audience's relationship growing with her.
Again, I'm not an audio book person, so the feeling of the story dragging along and having pointless stories told by secondary characters, could have been amplified by the format. I thought the voice actors did a great job verbalizing their parts and thought it added a lot of fun to the story. I think I have to give the nod the tv series, though. Here's to hoping for a second season.
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