Mission: Books 23/25
A Bestselling Book: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Fat Charlie Nancy is not actually fat. He was fat once but he is definitely not fat now. No, right now Fat Charlie Nancy is angry, confused and more than a little scared - right now his life is spinning out of control, and it is all his dad's fault. If his rotter of an estranged father hadn't dropped dead at a karaoke night, Charlie would still be blissfully unaware that his dad was Anansi the spider god. He would have no idea that he has a brother called Spider, who is also a god. And there would be no chance that said brother would be trying to take over his life, flat and fiancée, or, to make matters worse, be doing a much better job of it than him. Desperate to reclaim his life, Charlie enlists the help of four more-than-slightly eccentric old ladies and their unique brand of voodoo - and between them they unleash a bitter and twisted force to get rid of Spider. But as darkness descends and badness begins is Fat Charlie Nancy going to get his life back in one piece or is he about to enter a whole netherworld of pain?
I actually didn't really like Neil Gaiman on my first try. Though Good Omens had been one of my favourite books for years, I'd read Neverwhere shortly after I discovered it, and didn't really enjoy it. Then I was recced a later Sandman book and ended up confused and disappointed (because everyone seemed to love it.) But then I read American Gods and really liked it, and I also quite liked The Graveyard Book. I was told firmly by several people that I had to start Sandman from the very beginning because if I did I would love it - that turned out to be true (and by then Lucifer was one of my favourite series.) His short story collections had some really interesting ideas in them too (his story The Price is impossible to forget.) So for a while I thought he was an author I'd just needed to warm up to.
But I found Anansi Boys tough going. There were definitely some interesting ideas, and I wanted to see them played with, but I didn't find any of the main characters that interesting. Most of the character moments and weird quirks I enjoyed all came from side characters who had barely any attention paid to them. The middle of the book seemed to go on for too long with nothing really interesting happening. I would have liked to see a lot more of the eccentric old ladies, and strange gods than Fat Charlie's life.