Sunday 17 March 2019

Flipping Through Pages #20 - Neverwhere (A Book Review)



“Mind the gap!”


It's hard to be a hero. Much harder to just be yourself.

If there is something Gaiman has always excelled in, from his Sandman days to this book - is ensuring that you never had to become something you are not in his world. You had to just be yourself - flawed, heroic, ruthless, or even cowardly. Yourself.

Richard Mayhew isn't an extraordinary man or even an ordinary man of extraordinary abilities. He is, as frugal as it sounds in description, kind. And that is enough. In a world beyond the London he has come to know, in a world occupied by supernatural beings that are only too human in their flaws and wishes, he finds that the best thing to be, is yourself.

Gaiman expertly uses geography as well, as London is revealed to the reader in peculiar manner almost in literal irony. And he so deftly breathes life into the new world Richard experiences. You feel for everyone Richard meets, well almost everyone. Some people don't deserve your pain.

While some deserve all of it.

In the end, maybe you can't go home again. But don't worry, you may just find new ones waiting for you.

Come Richard. Let’s find you a Rat Speaker.

So, I give it 8.5 out of 10.

+Brilliantly crafted characters
+Wonderful plotting
+Rich world building

-Rushed ending

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