Neverwhere

Author: Neil Gaiman

One-sentence summary: A Londoner discovers a dark new world “beneath” the city that irrevocably changes his view of his life and the world.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 7

Our favorite thing about it: The writing was phenomenal and we loved the story and humor.

Our least favorite thing about it: It almost felt rushed to us and left us wanting more to the story at the end.

Main Topics of Discussion: Gothic Fairy Tales, Characterizations, London, Deception, Perception

Our favorite quote: “He had gone beyond the world of metaphor & simile into the place of things that are, and it was changing him.”

Notes: We really liked this book and story – for some of us more than we expected to. It was very entertaining. And although it was dark and touched on serious themes, it was also light-hearted and employed humor at just the right times. Our other thoughts:

1. We loved the characters of Croup and Vandermar. First of all – perfect names. And they were perfectly bad and disgusting. However, their scenes were some of the most vivid and definitely the most darkly humorous. Just really well done on these two.

2. We compared this novel several times to the show, Stranger Things, which most of us have watched at this point. Definitely some parallels. The above and below “worlds” is the most obvious.

3. We felt that some of the characters warranted more development. Richard and Marquis were developed and interesting – but others could have been.

4. We thought it was neat how he used the Tube – the literal names of stops like Shepherd’s Bush, Black Friar’s, etc. Clever.

5. We discussed the claim that, “the world likes to be deceived.” And found that mostly to be true. It was an interesting thought.

6. The way the author describes people entering the beneath world – “falling through the cracks” in our world – is just the perfect phrase. The idea of falling and the visualization of the invisible “cracks” just paints the perfect picture of what he’s trying to convey.

7. We thought the way the “underworld” mirrors our world was very insightful and we had a good time discussing that.

8. The theme of “displaced people” comes up several times. You can’t see them, they’re ignored and expendable. Like Anathesia – and her name is no accident. This was all very interesting and apt.

Memorable Meeting Moments: This was our first meeting without Amberly since she moved to China, but we did get to FaceTime her during our meeting!

What We Ate: Josh made us some amazing mushroom and cheese tarts for an appetizer. Then he served a beef pot pie with asparagus for the main dish. Dara made us a delightful chocolate bar cake for dessert.