There were snowstorms and locusts and fucking bears. The Laura Ingalls Wilder books were fucking gripping. But we need *something* to provide excitement in the story. If your main character's motivation is that he's bored… well… that's not really edge-of-the-seat material is it?ĭon't get me wrong. They're reactive, not active, and they're not particularly clever… Which leads to my next gripe…Ģ. He and his companions (for the most part) don't do anything.

It's the story of a boy who goes places and stares around in amazement as things happen around him. Many things to pull you into the story in addition to the interesting people and places that we meet through the course of the story. My point is, there's a lot of things going on in American Gods. 'What's up with Wednesday?' 'What's going on with Shadow's wife?' 'What's happening in this small Midwestern town?' And there is the overarching story arc about the war between the new gods and the old gods. There's a mystery and action and questions that need answering. There's plenty of tension in American Gods. Here's the thing, while plot isn't the focus of a picaresque, you can still tell an engaging story.

I wish I'd known that about 10 years ago….' I remember thinking, 'Huh, apparently I've written a picaresque. There's not much of a plot.Īnd before you get all impressed that I know that term, I'd like to mention that I only learned it in 2010 by listening to an interview with Neil Gaiman where he was discussing American Gods.

It's mostly just a series of adventures and visits to interesting places. I'm fairly sure the formal term for a book like this is a picaresque. But instead when I thought about this book, I mostly wanted to get through with it I could start reading a different, more engaging, book together with my boy. When thinking ahead to reading time at night, I want to be excited. Overall, I found reading it to be a bit of a slog. But I'd heard about it, and it was in my house (somehow) so I decided to give it a try. I never read The Phantom Tollbooth before, so it had no particular nostalgic appeal to me. I've been reading a chapter or two out loud to him every night when we can manage it. I just finished this book with my oldest boy.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster