I liked the ending of this book, but I am not sure it was worth the journey to get there. Seeing that the story takes the form of an American road trip, I can't help thinking there is some irony in the experience.
Shadow is a jailbird. He gets paroled early because his wife has died in tragic circumstances. As he travels across the United States to get home, he meets a mysterious man who calls himself Wednesday, and he receives an offer he can easily refuse but doesn't. Shadow soon finds himself enmeshed in conflict and conspiracy on a cosmic scale. His life falls apart as his business with Wednesday takes him up and down the length of America. Perhaps it is all a grand joke, but one that is going to blow up in Shadow's face.
I haven't read Gaiman before, but I have experienced some of his work: the movie Stardust (based on the novel of the same name) and an episode of Doctor Who penned by Gaiman. I enjoyed them for the light touch and sense of whimsy they both contained. American Gods, although it does have humour sprinkled throughout, is a far darker work. Murder, death and betrayal are there in large doses. And Gaiman does explore where the head and heart of modern America may reside nowadays, and it is a bleak vision.
My main problem with American Gods is that so much of it neither advances the plot nor develops the characters. There is a lot of repetition that serves no real purpose that I could perceive other than to make a long book longer. Its saving grace, to my mind, is the way Gaiman uses a certain motif throughout the book and then turns it into the metaphor for the denouement of the work.
Some times less is more, and vice versa.
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