Book Review: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Goodreads Summary: According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.
So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except for a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .

Goodreads Rating: 4.25 stars with over 490,000 ratings
Genre Listing: Fantasy, Fiction, Humor, Urban Fantasy
Goodreads Challenge: 12/60
2020 Reading Challenge: #50 A book with two or more authors (see the full challenge here)

Book Review:

Yay. I finally finished this book. I had wanted to read Good Omens since I burned through the Amazon series as soon as it came out. For only 388 pages, this book took me FOREVER to read. Now that I've experienced both the book and the show, I can say that the show reads precisely how the book is written. Hopefully, that makes sense. There weren't too many differences between the two, though I think the ending in the show is a little different.

Given that I loved the show, I thought I'd really like the book. This, unfortunately, did not end up being the case. I know. I know. The book is always supposed to be better, but for me, this just wasn't the case. Good Omens features a lot of different characters and perspectives, which makes it really hard for me to follow. I like Crowley and Aziraphale, and I loved following their parts of the story. Having to read from the perspective of Anathema, Newt, Shadwell, Adam and The Them, The Four Horsemen, and probably some Satanist Nuns just made it too hard for me to follow. It's a lot of people to follow in under 400 pages.

I forgot how much I disliked Adam and his cronies of friends. I guess it's fitting that I don't like the Anti-Christ. He seems like such a spoiled brat for most of the book (which he was in the show as well), and it made me not want to read his scenes. The dialogue with Adam and The Them is so hard to read. I also forgot how much I wanted to skip through the Four Horsemen in the show. After a while, I ended up skimming their scenes as quickly as I could. If you took the Four Horsemen out of the book, I honestly don't think the story would have changed all that much. 

I will say there were a lot of bits that I quoted in this book. These were just things I found interesting or funny. You can find anything I highlight on my Goodreads (Feel free to follow me here). These are probably the bits I liked the most about the book. The aspects I like about this book are kind of weird. I liked the beginning and the end, but I found the middle almost unbearable. I needed more Crowley and Aziraphale. Less Adam and the Four Horsemen. Anathema, Newt, and Shadwell were okay. Fewer pages of footnotes at the very end of the book. 

I'm going to be smitten (attacked use, not in love with) by an angry mob for this, I'm sure, but I actually enjoyed the show more than I enjoyed the book. Having read the book, I can firmly say that the show's casting was excellent. David Tennant makes the perfect Crowley. Michael Sheen was a great Arizaphale.