Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett

23 reviews

basil_touche's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

I think this is a rare case of the adaptation being better than the original book. I had seen the TV series before reading this and I'm honestly surprised at how much the show made up considering how long this book is. My biggest issue with this book is that the entire middle part was tedious, mainly focusing on the Them, Anathema, Newt and Shadwell for 120 pages, yet for all these characters it felt like nothing of note was really happening. I was bored and just wanting the narrative to switch back to Crowley and Aziraphale

(the latter stuck reading a book for those 120 pages, doing nothing else, just reading and having the narration describing it)

I could forgive it slightly if it was actually funny, but I found myself barely smiling at any jokes. Like this is well written in terms of sentence structure and I would occassionaly, absentmindly go "Oh that's kinda clever", but after a while it became tortuous to read through so much unhumorous descriptions with way, way too many characters. Many of whom are only there for a page or two and take away from the main cast. Even most of the main cast I didn't care for (I can see why the show focused more on Aziraphale and Crowley as they are the best characters who really work well off each other). The show added way more things that were actually interesting to the themes (Heaven and Hell having way more of a presence, Aziraphale and Crowley being shown through the ages - it's honestly shocking how little time they interact in the book compared to everyone else) that the book just feels so hollow in comparison.

Another thing that caught me off guard was the amount of racism, misogyny, ableism, fatphobia and homophobia (I was aware of the infamous scene where Aziraphale is called the f slur by a child but not everything else) that is scattered throughout. The parts where it pops up made an already tedious reading experience into an aggravating one. It's strange, I've read a bunch of Pratchett's work and I don't recall coming across anything this bad (I don't know about Gaiman's work and frankly with what's been happening reccently I don't want to buy his books to check).

This is the closest I've ever DNF a book and it came close several times. I've rated this slightly higher due to the ending, which stops trying to crack as many unfunny jokes to actually talk about the themes & characters in a way that makes you reflect. Where was that the rest of the book??

Again, you're better off watching the show and save yourself the trouble.

Content Warnings

madi_oasis's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook with the full cast, it felt like an immersive story that I was part of, watching the days counting down towards Armageddon like a proverbial fly on a wall.

The world building of the human realm is so fascinating, and the character development between the main cast is palpable and satisfying.

Content Warnings