Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

genre: fantasy

Richard Mayhew is just a man, living a quiet and rather ordinary life in busy London.  Well, it's an ordinary life until one moment, one decision, to help the girl he finds bleeding on the sidewalk.  When he decides that he can't just LEAVE her there, that he has to help her, everything - and I mean everything - changes.

That choice to help the girl we come to know as Door, will whisk Richard's ordinary life into an unreachable sphere and he will find himself in another London - a London "below."  A London where rats can speak and terrifying creatures roam and so many people are eager to kill you.  In this London, Door needs even more help.  There is something she must know and some really horrible people she must avoid and Richard just somehow keeps being there. Constantly forcing himself to suspend his disbelief about this turn his existence has taken, Richard Mayhew is determined to help Door and then get back to his "real" life.

So, I listened to this one and it was read by the author, which is why I listened to it instead of reading it. I could listen to Neil Gaiman talk to me all day.  Truly.  His telling of this story is one of the things that makes it so captivating, I'm sure.  His evil characters are EVIL in this story. They are gross and upsetting and really not in any way redeemable.  But, sometimes funny enough that I have to rewind and listen to some of the dialogue again.   There were many betrayals in this story which surprised me.  There were unique characters and lots of blood and gore and death and not a lot of HAPPY things happen at all.  But, once I began to care about Richard and about Door, I just needed to know how it was going to work out.  I was hoping for a little more of a romantic thread, like there was in Stardust, but alas, I was disappointed.  Well, disappointed in that fact, NOT in the story itself.  It was a little more crass and dark than I usually like but the twists and turns were surprising.  I'm not sorry I listened.  3.5 stars.