O.W.L’s Examinations | Charms Finals Review

Hello everybody, and welcome to another another review from The CW Torch! Today I will be reviewing Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, which I read for my Charms O.W.L’s Examination. For Charms we had to read a Fantasy novel, and Neverwhere is an Urban Fantasy. While I gave a low rating for Neverwhere, I have plenty of thoughts to discuss. So, without further ado, let’s get into the review! Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman Dates Read: April 10th - April 19th, 2018 Final Rating: 3.75/5 Stars  

Plot: Neverwhere follows our main character Richard Mayhew, a young London Businessman, who stumbles upon a bleeding girl, helping this bleeding girl in an act of kindness. Soon, Richard finds himself in London Below, a separate London where people fall through the cracks, and usually never come back out. As he seeks to find out more about this London Below, he finds that a strange destiny awaits him. When I first heard about this book, the plot really intrigued me, but I was very skeptical going into it. Mostly because I had read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and I really didn’t enjoy that book. But, the plot, and the center point of this London Below, really interested me. I did enjoy the major plot line of this novel, which I think was the main reason why I gave it a 3.75/5 as opposed to a 3/5. There were a lot of elements to the plot that really peaked my interest, since this wasn’t your typical hero-centric story. I really enjoyed the fantasy elements of this novel, because I felt they were very unique and different from other Fantasy novels I have read before. For instance, during Richard’s destiny, he finds himself in search of an Angel. I really enjoyed this aspect of the plot, because this Angel was more like a Lucifer of sorts, a Fallen Angel. Neil Gaiman made this Angel extremely dark and mysterious, which is something I haven’t really seen before in Angel-centered stories. Another aspect of this plot, that I really enjoyed, was when London Below and London Above intertwined. As Richard was in search of this Angel, he had to go to London Above, to find a piece of art this Angel was placed in. Surprisingly, his ex girlfriend was there, and she saw Richard, or who she thought was Richard. I really enjoyed this part, because this was where you could really see that London Below and London Above are very separate entities. Because Richard immediately recognized his ex, but she was a bit skeptical as if he was really Richard, since he hasn’t been home in what seems to be years, based on their interaction. The last aspect I really enjoyed were our two villains, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. These two villains were some of the creepiest, and most sinister villains I have ever read from. The way they thought was extremely gruesome, and kind of freaked me out at points. As I was reading this, I felt like they were some of the best written villains in any book I have read, involving villains. Yet, what stood them a part was that they were kind of goofy in the way they thought as well, with how they remembered things. They added a bit of whimsy to the story as well. While I enjoyed the plot as a whole, it took a while before I got really into the story. I thought it was really slow, and didn’t get very interesting until half-way through the book. Most of the parts I did enjoy, were towards the end, and took a long time to actually get there. For the beginning, I thought not a whole lot happened, and it kind of dragged on. Which is why I gave it a 3.75 and not a 4 Star Rating. Writing: While I think Neil Gaiman is a fantastic writer, and has an extremely unique writing style. I do think it takes him a while to get things going in the story, this is a problem I had with both American Gods and Neverwhere. However, with that being said his character building is spot on. He creates such unique and spell-binding characters, but at the same time most of them are flawed and unlikeable. But they are so interesting to read from their perspectives, because they are so unique. I was a little bit disappointed in the world-building of London Below. I thought it was going to be a more fantastical version of London Above, and while there were really interesting characters of London Below. It really wasn’t that much different than London Below, just a darker version of it. However, one aspect I really did enjoy about London Below, was how Neil Gaiman described it’s darkness. There was literally not a speck of light in this place. You definitely didn’t want to be in this place, based off of his descriptions. World-Building: As I mentioned earlier, I felt like this story lacked world-building. I definitely thought this was more of a character and plot-driven story, which was kind of a let down. Since, I was expecting so much more from this London Below. I felt like Neil Gaiman didn’t really take time to explain as to why this London Below was even there in the first place, or how it came to be. I thought the main difference from London Below and London Above were the characters and creatures of London Below. I honestly felt like this book could’ve been a bit longer, to get the world-building that it really needed. However, this book was a originally written to be a screenplay for a show, but then Neil Gaiman wrote it as a novel. So, I think that’s why it lacked the world-building that it did. Characters: One thing that really stood out to me in this book, were in fact the characters. Neil Gaiman writes extremely unique and different characters, who are also extremely flawed and well-developed. The characters were my favorite parts of this book. In London Below, we had a mix of unique characters who were all a little bit creepy and odd in their own way, which I absolutely loved. But our main character Richard Meyhew reminded us that London Above was still very real. But the characters of London Below, provided a bit of whimsy to this Adult Urban Fantasy, that you might find in a Middle Grade novel. We had a girl who could speak to rats, two very sinister villains who were essentially hit men. Mr. Vandemar and Mr. Croup kind of reminded me of Jasper and Horace in 101 Dalmatians, but on another level of creepy. They were still very clumsy and forgetful at times, which was why they reminded me of those two villains. There was a Fallen Angel, a prostitute who seemed to rule London Below. There were two very helpful hands who tagged along Richard to help find our Fallen Angel. There was Door, who was pretty much by Richard’s side throughout his entire journey. Who had provided a literal door back to London Above for him, making him question if he should stay in London Below or go back home to his family. And lastly a very helpful Marquis De Carabas, who was actually my favorite character. He always got himself in sticky situations to help distract our two villains from finding Richard. Then we had Jessica, Richard’s ex girlfriend from London Below. The one thing that made him want to go back home, until he finally ran into her. Jessica was pretty much all Richard could think of, until they ran into each other, making Richard fully aware that he was in deep with London Below. And that there might be more for him in London Below, without her wanting him back. Final Thoughts: All in all, there were many aspects of this book I really enjoyed. From the characters to the world of London Below. However, I did feel the story lacked in world building, because I felt like we didn’t truly understand why London Below was actually there. I also thought the story didn’t pick up until half-way through the book, because we were getting introduced to a lot of characters. So, I ended up giving Neverwhere a 3.75/5 stars. I’m not sure if I’ll be getting into more of Neil Gaiman books, because for some reason his writing style is really hard for me to get into. However, there are a few more books I would like to read from him, but I might go the audiobook route, if I decide to pick those books up.

Thank you all for reading my review, I hope you all enjoyed it! As there will be more reviews coming up soon! TTFN and Happy Reading, Chynna Williams @TheCWTorch Social Media Platforms: Instagram- @bigleaguephoto Twitter- @chynnaw16 YouTube- @TheCWReads