American Gods

I was hesitant about picking up Gaiman's novel, that I am ready to admit. It is a bad habit.. I tend to approach books with a certain idea of what they should be without really knowing anything about it and base my decision to read on that entirely misinformed (or noninformed) preconceived notion. I've recently been in the mood for classics - Peter Pan, Wuthering Heights, Crime and Punishment - so when I bought (or rather, Anil, my wonderfully generous boyfriend, bought) American Gods purely on a whim, I was not sure if I should keep it or return it to the bookshop. I'd never been a fan of the suspense/thriller genre and seeing a short appraisal from Stephen King on the back-cover of the book was ready to throw me off. I am now only 200 pages or so into American Gods and so glad that I didn't allow my stupid pretentious ideas to stop me from reading it. It is an engaging and well-written book and deals - albeit shallowly - with a host of ancient/contemporary "gods" in all senses of the word. It is fun to read, there is always a little bit of interesting information, some chance adventure, that keeps the story moving forward. There are some interesting themes that are brought up - the most obvious ones being the idea of a 'god', good vs evil, etc, but these weren't explored to their full potential. How do I put this? Okay, imagine the story as a huge pool with clean water and lots of fun water games that's about three-feet deep. But Gaiman is cute, very very cute, so I forgive him for constructing a lousy pool. Besides The Sandman makes up for it, I suppose.