Twice Baked Thursday (7): Neverwhere

Twice Baked Thursday is an original weekly meme created here at Cardigans, Coffee and Bookmarks.  This feature was created because Randi and Becky, often read the same books and have very different opinions about them.  When we read the same book we do a joint review on it, showing both sides. Our reviews will "talk back" to one another, one reviewer writing in another color text. Please feel free to join us and link to our blog in your post, and also use the widget below to link your own double review to our page.


Title: Neverwhere
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy (urban)
Audience: Adult/Teen crossover
Pages: 370
Source: Bought it on a lark years ago! Bought it (used, thank goodness)
Rating: Two stars: I'd go in for an awkward hug but be unable to go through with it. (Becky); I can't rate this one because it was a could-not-finish for me (Randi)

Goodreads Summary: When Richard Mayhew stops one day to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London pavement, his life is forever altered, for he finds himself propelled into an alternative reality that exists in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.

Our Thoughts

I was expecting a lot from this book, and it did not deliver anything. It delivered a week of no free-reading for me...I didn't want to read at all because I knew I needed to read this book next! And normally I avoid not-finishing a book as much as possible. The main character, Richard was pathetic and uninteresting to a degree I didn't know was possible. And he sounded so charming in the beginning...especially with that Scottish accent... I found myself hoping the villains would kill him off, even though I knew it would never happen. How did I know? Because I knew exactly what would happen throughout the entire story because the plot was painfully formulaic and boringly familiar. I swear, every time you say that about a book I feel like an idiot! NOOOO! I only want the author to feel that way, lol. I don't know if I'm just so excited to get through the story that I just skip over the natural thought processes that accompany a good reader (prediction, for example) or what! I know I have the ability to use those processes, or I don't think I'd have made it through four years of literary analysis, but we definitely read differently, which makes this really interesting! ;) The one thing I could never see coming was the occasional sexually explicit comment that popped up without context or reason.  It was as if Gaiman was trying to convince us that this was an adult novel, when it clearly should have been written for children with a younger narrator. That would probably be an excellent book, no joke. I'd read it.

The secondary characters were for the most part as uninteresting and flat as Richard (Door, Hunter, Lamia...). I didn't meet Lamia, but I guess I didn't miss anything! There were three exceptions: the Marquis de Carabas and the villainous pair Mr Croup and Mr. Vandemar. Ugh, Mr. Vandemar honestly disgusted me. Not only did I dislike him, but I found his constant munching of slugs (while they're trying to escape his mouth), frogs, and biting heads off of various critters to be incredibly gross. Well, duh! Of course you're not supposed to like his character, and perhaps I'm just a big baby, but I really dreaded his scenes because I just didn't want to read about it.  Their characters had potential that was never expanded upon.   Gaiman did manage to imagine a fascinating parallel world, however, which I enjoyed. It was chaotic, dirty, and dangerous. I did like the world he created (the half of it that I saw!). A big part of the reason I was excited to read this one is because it's set in LONDON. (I'm sure that was a draw for you, too, Becky!) Unfortunately, I just couldn't finish it.


(better) Read Alikes Abarat andDownsiders andThe Magicians