Reviews

#Gods by Matthew Gallaway

itsallgood711's review against another edition

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5.0

very good
very funny
very different

4.5 stars

ladydewinter's review against another edition

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5.0

This was so much fun to read! It's been a while since I read a book that was this different to what I expected, and it was like a sip of cool water when you didn't even know how thirsty you were.

One of the downsides of my job is that so much I read feels really predictable - I chose all the books I read as freely as I can, but I can't lie and say the question "who can I sell this to?" is never on my mind. That is why I it's always fun to read things where the answer to that is "I don't know and I don't care; this is why I read books."

The description of the book made me expect something different, but to be honest now that I've read it I don't know how I would describe it. It starts straightforward enough, with a detective involved in a weird case of what seems to be ritual killings that may also connect to the disappearance of his sister forty years ago. Gus thinks she was taken away by a god - the Greek gods who have presumably returned to earth.

Now, you'd think this would turn into some sort of queer urban fantasy, like a gay version of American Gods, but it thankfully doesn't. It becomes a lot more, and everything culminates in a really quite wonderful retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.

I made sure to pace myself so this would last me until the last day of Christmas in retail - my daily dose of joy that reminded me how much fun reading can be. It's smart and funny and imaginative and has both focus and a wide scope, if that makes sense, and funnily it even has a hockey player in it.
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