The Anansi Boys-by Neil Gaiman

   This book was kind of hard to get into, unlike the other books I have read/ listened to on audio books. The thing that made this story hard to get into (hard to follow along) is that it just drags on and on. Also our main character Charlie (aka Fat Charlie), has a plain and simple character. He was a boy that didn't like his father very much and has grown up to be a simple, but happy man with his new fiance. Then when we get introduced to his brother, named Spider, his character is strange and kind of annoying sometimes. I guess that works well for the reader to get the sibling rivalry between them.

Sometimes in the book Spider can be pretty annoying to Charlie as most siblings can relate to that annoyance of their brother or sister. When Charlie talked to the spider (insect) and asked to find his brother, at first it was a surprised that Charlie had a brother. But soon, all Charlie wants is his brother to be gone from his life. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen, Spider says that he has a plan. He goes to a new place, stays there for a while, and when he feels bored then he leaves and goes to another place. The more time that Spider stays in Charlie's life, the more miserable it is for Charlie. Spider even goes as far as pretending that he is Charlie and goes into his work and goes out with his fiance, then starts to have feeling for her (he's in love with her). Spider is taking everything that Charlie has.

    There seems to be a lot of things going on in the story, that get all tangled up, kind of like a spider web. Or, at least that is how I see it. Because there are so many characters that keep popping in and out of the story and sometimes taking up more time than focusing on Charlie's problem with his brother. To me it seems like I am getting more confused  with additional story lines over lapping the main one.  Somewhere in the chapters Charlie goes to a cave that has people acting a lot like animals (or maybe they are half human, half animal). I did think that it was kind of cool when Charlie was in the caves and he goes to this bird lady and asks her if she can get rid of his brother. The reason why I say that it was cool is because when you look back to the Animal Planet show, people know that birds eat insects (as well as worms and other bird food), so having this bird woman chase away the spider was a cleaver idea.

     Maybe I have to go back and re-read this book but I just didn't enjoy this book as well as I had originally thought. I guess the fault is mine because I know most of my friends have read some book by Neil Gaiman and they swear to it that his books are the best. Also after watching the movie adaptation of his book Coraline, I was expecting something close to that dark and mystery story. I know that some people can say that this book was mysterious, but for me it was just long and confusing.