Neverwhere Review by Melissa La Fountain

The book Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman was definitely my favorite of the two books I had to read over the summer for English. It tells the story of Richard Mayhew, a simple London man. It seems that everything about his life is average and boring, until one day he comes across a young woman named Door, who flips his world upside down...literally. Richard finds himself in London Below, a parallel of the London he knew where being abnormal is the norm. Richard spends the majority of the novel longing for London Above, to be ordinary once again. But once he has met a plethora of peculiar characters, defeated an ominous beast, and become a hero, he realizes that being ordinary isn't what he wants after all. I thought that the way that Neil Gaiman wrote each chapter really put a vivid picture into the readers' minds. His writing is thoroughly descriptive, to the point where if you close your eyes you can perfectly understand how each character and each placed looked. Gaiman also used a rotating point of view method to add more dimension to his novel. This allowed for readers to get inside each character's head and really understand who they were. In a lot of books, you only get the point of view of the protagonist. In Neverwhere, you get the points of view of the protagonist, the antagonist, and every character in between.
Usually, I'm not a very big fan of the books we have to read over the summer. I would much rather read a book that I choose and read because I want to read it, not because I am forced to. However, Neverwhere didn't feel like a book I had to read. I enjoyed it and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to read such a good book.

Picture Source: TV, Pond. "News: New Neverwhere Book". Anglonerd. N.p., 2015. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Book Review: Neil Gaimen's Never where by Natalie Earl

The book was fiction, it interested me how Neil Gaiman came up with a book story about rat-speakers and a London Above or London Below. The story was so out of the ordinary and I was fascinated by the different type of characters, there was a Hunter, Royals like Door and her family, Angels, velvets, and so many more different characters. The story had murder and adventure, every chapter I read had more drama and suspense then the last. I wish Neil Gaiman went into more detail about Anesthesia being taken away, it was a quick explanation that I did not understand that well. I wanted to know more about Richard's love interest because it seemed at many situations in the book that Richard and Door felt something for each other. One part of the book I adored was how Richard won the key and that he was able to go to London Aove or Below if he wanted to at any time. It was a  perfect idea to add in the end that Richard was going insane because he didn't know if London Below was real. The homeless person on the street in London Above was scared of Richard because he was ranting on about wanting to go back to London Below and I thought that it was intriguing to see how badly Richard missed the life in London Below. The book is one of my favorites and I didn't expect to like the book as much as I did, the idea for the book was creative and I loved to read Neil Gaimen's book.