If American Gods is a cross-country roadtrip of a book, Anansi Boys is a commute.
My least favorite Neil Gaiman book? If not least favorite, it’s right next to Stardust. Gaiman often writes variants fish out of water stories of a normal person becoming entangled in the surreal. This book was me realizing it’s his go-to story structure. I love American Gods, Ocean at the End of the Lane, and Neverwhere, but Anansi Boys fell short for me.
Maybe my disappointment comes from my previous experience with the setting of Anansi Boys? Although it’s a very different tone, the book is semi-marketed as a sequel to American Gods. Anansi feels more akin to Good Omens, but without the cleverness. It tried a little too much for dry humor, a little too hard at the end to bring in the surreal. The book lacked the dark charm and mystery of its predecessor. I imagine Neil Gaiman luxuriating in writing American Gods. Making his publisher sweat with the pace he wrote; moseying from one paragraph to the next. A process that took a couple years and maybe a few roadtrips. Anansi Boys felt like he wrote it on summer holiday. It’s not that it was bad read, I just expect so much from a Gaiman book. It was a letdown after the highs of his other stories.