This is a sort of sequel to American Gods - it features "Mr. Nancy" from American Gods - or more accurately his progeny, much like American Gods featured the child of another diety.

I don't want to give away too much but like all Gaiman's books this is very well written and keeps you wanting to read more. This one has a bit more humor in it than American Gods - it reminded me more of Neverwhere than American Gods but that was OK too. :D

No one gets me righteously indignant over what happens to imaginary people like Gaiman. He is a true master of "the schmuck with the unexpected something extra". Written in the same universe as American Gods this is a much gentler story which I rather enjoyed.
A story of the painfully self-conscious Fat Charlie Nancy, his embarrassing father, and his infuriatingly cool brother who is preternaturally good at charming the pants off of everyone; this is a tale of unlikely heroes, getting what you want and realizing that it couldn't be farther from what you need, epically dysfunctional families, pretty (and competent) girls, personal growth, ancient grudges, and as always (and probably most importantly), it belongs to Spider.

If only this novel was a good as all the hype I'd of been very happy. I myself hoped after reading Gaiman's "American Gods" that his follow up novel would be an improvement upon it. As it so happens I find it's not even as good as "Gods", which I rated as a 3 star read. This in my view only get's a 2 star award. Nothing wrong with the writing and the story has a few funny passages that made me laugh. The problem is the story for me, It just didn't grip me and I've held back from posting a review for a few weeks so as to resist diving in with a bad review. I wanted to reflect about the story and I'm afraid that I still feel dissapointed with "Anansi Boys". I'm hoping I find Gaiman's collection of stories ,"Fragile Thing's", the 5 star Gaiman book I'm waiting for.

Neil Gaiman's novel "American Gods" was epic in scope, telling the story of a massive conflict between gods old and new, homegrown and carried from old countries, in which nothing was what it seemed. "Anansi Boys" is nothing like that - or is it?

Set sometime in the same world as "American Gods", "Anansi Boys" tells the story of everyday loser Charles "Fat Charlie" Nancy, who learns only upon the death of his supremely embarrassing father that the old man was in fact the trickster god Anansi. Oh, and Fat Charlie has a brother too, Spider - the one who got all the cool, all the daring, all the self-confidence that Charlie has grown up without. It's when Fat Charlie takes the advice of an old wise-woman who knew his father and tells a spider to find his brother that everything starts to change...

"Anansi Boys" takes a totally different slant on the world that "American Gods" opened up, and does it charmingly and effectively. Instead of smoothly consorting with all-powerful gods, Fat Charlie muddles through his education in the ways of belonging to a divine family, and more often than not screws it up. But his very humanity is, in contrast to his brother's assumption of divine capability, what pulls him through. In the end, the Anansi boys discover a lot more about what each of them is and wants than you think is possible at the beginning of the novel, and the evolutions they go through to realize these things are believable, funny and a little sad.

I suspect Neil Gaiman had a lot of fun writing this book - it has its dark moments, but on the whole it's as light-hearted a work as he's written (excepting "Good Omens", and I think Terry Pratchett had something to do with that...)

I definitely enjoyed the book. Gaiman is funny and unpredictable, but still ties up the loose ends, which I appreciate. This is a good story of a very unusual father and two very unusual sons, and how they all manage to relate to each other.