Neil Gaiman, American Gods

Another book with no character names! Everyone instead has an aleius or just a last name. I liked that, it gives a back story to all the characters. For instance Shadow goes by Shadow because he was a shy kid who followed adults around rather than playing with other kids. I liked Shadow a lot as a character and that he, as a full grown and rather large criminal sort of man, has so many ties to his childhood and childlike questions and actions. The story jumps around a lot and I definitely had trouble following the story, but that's not to say that it made me dislike the book. I found some of the short stories within the book, such as the story of the twins, to kind of take me outside the context of the main story to give a me a greater understanding of some issue that will aide me when I return to the actual story. The same thing is true of the short quotes at the beginning of each chapter. I especially liked the chapter that started with Benjamin Franklin's quote, "Three may keep a secret, if the two of them are dead" and then started the chapter with the sentence, "Three days had passed." I thoroughly enjoyed Neil Gaiman's style of writing, and found many of his ideas about the world quite insightful, but the whole idea of ancient Gods living within modern times and living regular mortal style lives just didn't dance for me. The writing kept me reading, but the plot concerning the god's and their impending battle or storm didn't win me over. I have yet to finish the book, so maybe the ending will change my mind about the plot.