The story of the Fat Charlie, the son of a god, and his first invited, then uninvited brother, Anansi Boys is typical Neil Gaiman fare: it’s beautifully and occasionally hilariously written, fantastical and poignant. All the stuff he usually does. It is all over the map in the best way possible. I hope that none of this makes it sound like he just cranks these wild fantasies out, because I don’t believe for a moment that is the case. It is more that I believe that this story, like every other story of Gaiman’s that I have ever read (and there are many), contains a little bit of the heart and the soul of the author, and his heart and soul are still the same wonderful, fluffy, slippery little bits of magic that they always have been. I loved this book. I absolutely devoured it (metaphorically, of course). I don’t know how he does it in story after story, book after book, but every word he writes is a joy to read.
Now that the fan-girling is over, I give my verdict.
We the jury find the defendant guilty of being a good-ass book (that has nothing to do with anything, I’ve just been listening to true crime podcasts all day, and so my brain is stuck on juries reading verdicts. Please ignore me).
4 out of 5 items of rating on this book that I really should have read years ago, when this review would have been timely.
I do feel it is worth pointing out that this was an assigned reading for a class, and the fact that it is a book about African lore written by a white British man was a topic of much conversation, and rightly so. And I’m glad that we surrounded this one with African lore written by African people, and there was much discussion around the different lenses the stories are told through.
