Book Review - Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

Title: Neverwhere

Author: Neil Gaiman

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 4 out of 5 sewer pipes

Richard Mayhew was a man with an ordinary job, and ordinary fiancee, an ordinary life, and he was happy. Until the day when he found a girl bleeding to death on the sidewalk, and chose to help her. This simple act removes Richard from his ordinary life and throws him into the underground of London, where assassins, bodyguards, and rats rule all. So begins Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman.

As you may have read in my First Impressions post, Neverwhere begins simply enough. The reader never even gets a sense of the true genre of the story until Richard meets a strange man who takes him on a strange journey, about 50 pages into the book. However, once Richard takes the leap into the underworld, anything goes.

The characters of Neverwhere are well written in that most of them are not what they appear to be at first glance. The most appealing characters in the book are acutally the "bad guys": Smooth talking, educated Mr. Croup, and brutal, quiet Mr. Vandemar. These two characters are a lot of fun to read about, and I actually found myself looking forward to their appearances.

Neverwhere, in contrast to some of Gaiman's other works (i.e. Stardust), is not very visually appealing. It seems as if the characters are always ducking in and out of sewer grates and trudging through dirty water. Although this is to be expected, given the setting of the book, it left my imagination wanting. I found myself imagining nearly every scene as the same dark section of sewer pipe.

Another thing that began to bother me about Neverwhere is the fact that it adheres too strongly to the standard mixture of fantasy elements. There is a hero, who is destined to save the day. There is a girl, who he must protect. There is an older male, who is wise and tells them everything they need to know. There is a strong and stern sidekick, who is hiding their true nature. Many stories borrow these character archetypes, but I think Gaiman relies too heavily on them here.

With that being said, Neverwhere still presents a very imaginitive view of what happens after one walks by a "homeless" person on the street. If we would just open our eyes, as Richard Mayhew did, we would discover a whole new world of possibilities.

4 out of 5 sewer pipes!

First Impressions - Neverwhere

Good evening everyone! I wanted to take this opportunity to try out a new post idea I had: First Impressions. I thought I would take my current read, and after reading about 20% of the book, post about my feelings on it so far. I figured it would give the curious reader some quick information about the story, and what to expect. But don't worry, my full review will always be posted when I am done with the book! Also, please note that I reserve the right to discuss some minor plot points. I don't necessarily consider these spoilers because they come so early in the book, but if you'd rather not know anything at all, avert your eyes! Also, feel free to leave comments telling me if you did/did not like this post idea!

Here are my first impressions of Neverwhere, written by Neil Gaiman.

At first, I wasn't sure about this book. The first few pages read like a generic drama, and although I could sense Gaiman's hand in the works, it felt too dissimilar from his other stories. However, as the pages started turning, I quickly began to realize that there is much more going on in Neverwhere than originally meets the eye.

A girl gets attacked by two devious men, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, and narrowly escapes to be rescued by the protagonist Richard Mayhew. This sets a chain of events in motion that sees Richard falling through the proverbial rabbit hole and literally scaling buildings above the streets of London. At the end of my First Impressions read, Richard has gone back to the life he knew only to realize that no one notices him anymore - and those that do, do not recognize who he is.

Neverwhere is quickly grabbing my attention, and I find that I can not put it down (although I should, as I have a full time job and school on my plate!). Something tells me the rest of the story will fly by as I continue to follow Richard deep into the shadowed regions of London's underground.