T;LDR: Alice in Wonderland for adults, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is a crazy, imaginative, macabre and fascinating adventure.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Richard Mayhew plods through life like we all do – with a fiancee, a job, some friends, and the troll dolls on his desk. He thinks he’s happy as he is, but he’s about to go somewhere he never knew existed and find out that maybe ‘normal’ isn’t for him.
This book promised to be an Alice in Wonderland for adults and it delivered. It is odd, somewhat macabre, with twists and turns all over the place. I liked the diversity of characters, the interesting world of London Below, and the story. I’m not sure if it was because I read the hardback illustrated version or not, but I want to reread this and own it. For all that and more, I give this 5 stars.
The Plot
Richard Mayhew is a young businessman in the prime of his life. He is, for all intents and purposes, living the good life. He has an attractive fiancee, a good job, a nice apartment, and everything is falling into place.
That is, of course, until one day he does an act of kindness. He sees a girl in rags in an alleyway and decides to help her. What happens next is nothing short of fantastical. He finds out the London he lives in is London Above and there is a whole other world of crazy, fascinating, and downright scary people in London Below.
The problem – once he’s stepped foot in London Below, his whole life in London Above disappears. Now he’s on a quest, to help the Lady Door (the girl in rags) and find the key to return him to his old life.
Will they be successful in their quest? Will Richard return to his old life? And will it be enough if he does?
What I liked & liked less
I liked this book, a lot. It is confusing and odd. Everyone seems to be out to eat you, kill you, rob you, or generally cause harm upon you. And yet, they all seem so quaint and polite (except for the smelly ones).
First, all of the characters are interesting. They each have their own agendas, some hidden and some not. It feels like there is so much depth in the backstory of this book that you never quite get told to you.
You hear about the areas they visit. You see some of the tension that occurs, and yet the world building is not an info dump and is just tantalizing enough to leave you satisfied, but not. It’s like eating a bowl of popcorn. While you’re eating it, it’s yummy and you feel full, but twenty minutes later, it was as if you ate air.
Speaking of world building, I loved all of it. It was dark, grim, dirty, messy and very weird, but also delightful and inventive. I’m not sure how to describe it, which is why I’m throwing adjectives at it. It has a dark whimsy feel to it that I’ve not read in other books.
Richard is bumbling, states the obvious, finds the whole thing confusing and scary, and yet he steps up when he should, he shuts up when he should, and you come away just liking him. Not loving him or feeling strongly about him, but he’s like a nice cup of tea on a rainy day.
(Why is it that Neil Gaiman makes me want to write my review in this odd food-based way?)
He grows in his experience and he doesn’t ever really grasp what’s happening around. But, it’s not done in a way I’ve seen it in other books where I wanted to grab the character and shake them until their teeth fall out. So, naive and stupid, but not too stupid.
The Lady Door is charming, innocent and worldly, and yet determined to do what she needs to do to survive. I liked her childlike nature as well as her more mature nature. It was a good balance.
The Marquis de Carabas was awesome. Charming and debunair, I’d expect he’d be a very successful conman in our world. He is almost always prepared and has more items in his coat pockets than seem possible. While he’d sell you out for the right price, he also appears to have a code of honor.
The villains, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, are creepy and dark. Somewhere in my brain are villains like them, but I can’t remember who that would be and in what I saw them. I liked their vanities, their horrific dietary choices, and their love of their craft – aka killing people slowly.
What didn’t I like? Well, Richard is a bit whiny, a bit soft, a bit weak. He could’ve had a stronger arc. But, it wasn’t just his story, and the other characters were interesting and deep, which made those issues seem irrelevant.
I loved the illustrations in the book, and then they got in the way of my own imagination, so they were good and bad. I still want that version of the book, though.
To Sum Up (Too Late!)
A fun quest adventure tale through a dark and twisty London Below, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman was like a sillier version of Simon Green’s Nightside. The characters were multi-faceted, the villains dark and twisted, and the twist, while somewhat predictable, was still good fun. Because I have a yen to own this book and reread it, it gets 5 stars. It doesn’t seem to fair to give it less than that if it earns a place on my bookshelf, even if it’s not quite as good as a few of my favorites.
About the Author
Neil Gaiman is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Neverwhere (1995), Stardust (1999), the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning American Gods (2001), Anansi Boys (2005), and Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett, 1990), as well as the short story collections Smoke and Mirrors (1998) and Fragile Things (2006).
His first collection of short fiction, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions, was nominated for the UK’s MacMillan Silver Pen Awards as the best short story collection of the year. Most recently, Gaiman was both a contributor to and co-editor with Al Sarrantonio of Stories (2010), and his own story in the volume, The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains, has been nominated for a number of awards. American Gods has been released in an expanded tenth anniversary edition, and there is an HBO series in the works.
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Originally published on Feedium.