I've given Neil Gaiman so, so many tries, and this was the nail in the coffin (heh heh no internal joke intended). It was so boring. I literally fell asleep THREE TIMES during the big battle scene and then my library loan expired and I had to read a text version.

I liked Shadow's character. He seems like a really nice dude with a lot of potential. Problem is that he does nothing the entire book, including down to choosing what food to eat—other characters suggest what he should have and he accepts it, multiple times. Then when his wife shows up to tell him that it seems like he isn't alive because he DOES NOTHING, I was like, "Oh, so Neil IS AWARE that he is writing a main character that DOES NOTHING, so aware in fact that he has another character call him out, maybe this will be a turning point and Shadow will be inspired to order his own hamburger for once." NOPE. Shadow mopes about his wife trying to move him to positive change, and then continues doing whatever a random side character suggests that day.

Alternative suggestions for this book if I were the editor:
1. Write travel essays about Americana. That's what you wanted to do anyways, Neil.
2.

Spoiler

The cop in the UP has been requiring human sacrifices of young girls every year for YEARS and the whole town is in on it?? Why not make Shadow investigate that and face resistance and solve the mystery of why such a small town has had so many disappearances of teenage girls?? SUCH A MORE INTERESTING STORY THAT I ACTUALLY WANT TO READ, NEIL.

3. Maybe show how the old gods have blended in and adapted to the new land instead of creating new gods like Media? For example, Bacchus (god of entertainment) hijacks Vulcan's (god of tools) invention: the internet. After all, we know that gods change names as they move through time and culture, but there is nothing new under the sun.
4. That's enough ideas for today.