Eight Million Gods
She can't control it, doesn't understand it, but can use it to make money anywhere in the world. Currently "anywhere" is in Japan, hiding from her mother who sees Nikki's OCD as proof she's mentally unstable. Nikki's fragile peace starts to fall apart when the police arrest her for the murder of an American expatriate. Someone killed him with a blender. Reality starts to unravel around Nikki. She's attacked by a raccoon in a business suit. Is she really being pursued by Japanese myths—or is she simply going insane? What Nikki does know for sure is that the bodies are piling up, her mother has arrived in Japan to lock her up for the rest of her life—and her novels always end with everyone dead.
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Eight Million Gods
To ask other readers questions about Eight Million Gods , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Apr 16, heidi rated it really liked it Shelves: This book was equal parts delicious gaijin-in-Japan-whodunit, and madness-or-magic creepiness, and I thought the mix was really interesting. Nikki's mental illness and her experiences are vastly different when viewed through a different cultural filter, and it makes you think about how many things we know are true are actually just our own culture talking.
Nikki is charmingly pop-culture, as is most of the book. She says that quoting laws to police officers is like their kryptonite. Toward the en This book was equal parts delicious gaijin-in-Japan-whodunit, and madness-or-magic creepiness, and I thought the mix was really interesting. This book was full of women, all types of women, doing all types of things.
Very seldom do the women feel like victims, and even the one who is killed off screen is a person, with her own interests, and not just a girl to avenge. Nikki is working extremely hard to not be a victim of her mother's power and manipulation. She has a strong network of women helping her. I really liked that.
- Eight Million Gods | Book by Wen Spencer | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster!
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I didn't feel like it had the deep thematic structure of some of Spencer's books, like A Brother's Price or Endless Blue. It was more on the Ukiah Oregon end of her writing spectrum. But there were still some moments of genuine creepy horror, mostly in Nikki's relationship with her mother.
I bought this as an e-ARC, and as usual, there are some typos, probable about 10 or so of them. Other than that, it is obviously well-edited. You are content to let a story carry you along at its own pace, and to not really overinvest in knowing what exactly is happening all the time. You have liked previous Wen Spencer books.
You have a mental catalog of anime movies other people might like. You are tired of OCD as the catch-all detective disease. You are not sure about spending a whole novel in Japan. The cover art and blurbs, and the humorous first few pages of this book beguiled. So much so that on a recent book store visit, armed with a gift card, I succumbed to the allure of the cover and my past experience with other Wen Spencer novels. The main character seemed to be able to create characters by writing them, there was a murder, mysterious characters appeared and the humor was not there at all.
I was not impressed. Mar 29, Joy rated it it was amazing Shelves: I first read Spencer's work years ago with Tinker. I can always look forward to a well written adventurer and in this she moves out of the over used Western European Mythos for Supernaturals into Japan. Her character is an American woman who is gifted with great magic but who has been tormented by an evil mother into thinking she's mentally ill.
When she escapes her mother's latest attempt at institutionalizing her, she ends up in Japan. There her world view is quickly expanded by meeting a Tanuk I first read Spencer's work years ago with Tinker. There her world view is quickly expanded by meeting a Tanuki, the shapeshifting badger dog, who tries to kill her.
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She soon after becomes the vessel for a Kami, a minor god who inhabits an ancient sword and from there "much action abounds. Aug 21, Tim Hayes rated it did not like it Shelves: Look, I understand what it is to be a Japan-o-phile. Gods know I was one throughout all of college and the culture retains a place of affection in my heart. But there's so much gratitous Japanese in this book by which I mean, the usage of words that do not carry any appreciable difference over their English counterparts that even I got irritated and turned off.
Here's a hint for all you aspiring authors out there: If you have to include a lexicon at the back of your book for a real world langu Look, I understand what it is to be a Japan-o-phile. Other folks might enjoy Eight Million Gods a lot more than I did. But for me, Spencer's insistence on using gratitous Japanese grated, reminding me of all the most irritating otaku you can only encounter in the dark corners of screening rooms at Anime conventions, and it left me wanting to take a rasp to my eyeballs rather than read another word.
I have mixed feeling about Eight Million Gods. For me the problem is the setting and how it works into the story. Eight Million Gods is set in Japan where there are many, many shrines and gods. The interaction of the main character with the shrines the gods and all things Japanese is the basis of the story.
I am not a fan of manga or anime and a background with those would make this an easier world to I have mixed feeling about Eight Million Gods. I am not a fan of manga or anime and a background with those would make this an easier world to drop into. In fact drop into without understanding is how I felt. I just did not have the background for the world and was often left in the dark. At one point I started to make this a DNF but pressed on and did get more caught up in the story. There are many terms used in the story that requires a glossary and there is one on pages — I needed it more than once.
Ir is a complex world that has the potential for many, many stories. Nikki is the main character and she is what drives the plot. She has powers she does not understand. When she escapes a Mother who wants to keep her locked up and goes to live in Japan strange things start to happen. The entire plot stems from there. Look for a lot of danger, strange characters, many surprises and twists and turns. There is also some romance.
The externals from all of the other characters who want a part of Nikki.
Kannazuki - Wikipedia
There are a lot. Nikki is very well drawn. She has several friends that play a part. Each is well developed. There is some mystery about some of the characters and the bad guys are just that, bad Writing: The story is very well written. As I stated earlier my only problem was a lack o backgrounds in Japan , anime and mange. There were some parts that were out of chronological order.
That fit the story but could be confusing. I will continue to read the series but it will not be my favorite of the books written by Wen Spencer. Dec 14, Kelly Flanagan rated it it was amazing. I loved this book. It reminded me right away of Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies but set in Japan and with a righteous heroine just trying to be herself, sort of.
From the amazing scenery to the myths and stories of Japan, this book drags you kicking and screaming into every horrific minute. Imagine being a teenage daughter of a senator. Then there is the unhappy condition of her hypergraphia - or an unrelenting obsession to write whenever anxious or scared, no matter where or what SIX STARS! Then there is the unhappy condition of her hypergraphia - or an unrelenting obsession to write whenever anxious or scared, no matter where or what you are doing. Her mother's way of dealing with it, even though Nikki is fully capable in every other way of looking after herself, is to hospitalize her continuously.
So Nikki heads half a world away, to live in Japan with her best friend. As if culture shock and the lack of toilet paper wasn't shocking enough, Nikki finds herself being questioned by police when her horror blog resembles a murder that happened just hours after her post. And the details are the same. What is Nikki in for and who is killing people that match her book ideas and blogs? A fast moving, exotic escapade, the story takes place in Japan, where the heroine is hurtling like a random Brownian particle between Japanese deities, huge shopping malls, mysterious agents of the paranormal branch of the CIA, and her own imagination.
Nikki Delany is a twenty-year-old horror writer with OCD, which manifests as hypergraphia — an overpowering urge to write. To escape her domineering, super-rich mother, who wants to lock her daughter in a mental institution, Nikki flees America to Japan. She is writing a horror novel involving lots of dead people, a horde of menacing shape-shifters, and one or two scheming gods. Her fans clamor on her website, whenever she posts a new blood-curdling snippet from her novel.
It might all be true. Someone killed him with a blender. Reality starts to unravel around Nikki. She's attacked by a raccoon in a business suit. Is she really being pursued by Japanese myths—or is she simply going insane? What Nikki does know for sure is that the bodies are piling up, her mother has arrived in Japan to lock her up for the rest of her life—and her novels always end with everyone dead.
About Eight Million Gods: A well-paced story with interesting characters and setting. It is diverting and entertaining fantasy. Furious action…good characterization, playful eroticism and well-developed folklore…lift this well above the fantasy average …. Buffy fans should find a lot to like in the book's resourceful heroine. Somewhere far back in her childhood, she had a faint memory of having a bedroom full of things that were hers and hers alone, an entire room full of privacy. They hit the bedroom door at the same time, and Yip and Yap went ballistic at the sight of a brand-new person to play with.
Instantly Nikki was alone in the room. The fox terriers were the main reasons she was crashing with Sheila instead of other friends; her mother was terrified of dogs. She wanted every advantage she could use against her mother, just in case of days like this. A quick check confirmed her wallet had everything she needed to start life over.
Next time in Japan. This is so fucking unfair! Fair or not, it was what she had to work with. How was she going to get out of this?
She pulled on her running shoes. Yip and Yap would make sure that her mother stayed as far as possible from the bedroom, but Officer Russell was firmly anchored in the doorway. Nikki breathed out a laugh. This was going to be one of those conversations where the whole point was to influence the interloper, not the person actually addressed.
Yes, I had a background check done on the woman.
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Her hypergraphia begged her to scribble an entire random scene onto the dresser mirror. Poor Julie had actually reported her missing before the FBI let her know that Nikki had been involuntarly committed to a mental hospital. Did her mother know about her plans to flee to Japan? The biggest problem with her plan was how easy it was for a senator to track a US citizen via a passport. Provided, of course, they knew to look. Up to now, Nikki been careful not to cross any borders. She had used a spy level of caution in getting a copy of her birth certificate and applying for her passport.
She had researched methods of getting out the country quietly and how movements of citizens were reported.
Nikki closed her eyes. A desert island, far, far away from her mother. Away from the closed-in spaces of a mental hospital. Nikki, a laptop, Internet connection, and nothing but white sand, shifting shadows, and the dazzle of sun off the ocean. Nikki nodded, opening her eyes. Still, she needed to find out first what her mother knew. She made a show of opening drawers and going through the contents.