GOOD OMENS, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was inspired to pick up this book by the Amazon mini-series last summer (2019), which featured two of my favorite British actors, David Tennant and Michael Sheen. I normally have a rule in my house that we should attempt to read books before we watch adaptations in film or television, so we all raced through the book as fast as we could in order to start watching the series. We'd all read at least one Terry Pratchett book before (Nation) and thought we knew what we were getting into.

Long story short, the book did not age well. Also, it was a cowritten project between Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and we could see some of the “seams” in the book. What was great was that many things that bothered us about the book were fixed in the television production. Not all of them, but many of them. And the two lead actors were phenomenal, of course, not to mention the other wonderful cast members.

In short, do I recommend this book? I almost hate to write this, but no, I think I recommend the Amazon series over the book. There are some unfortunate racial/ethnic/other stereotypes in the book, which really does need a 21st century sensitivity edit. The television series does better, although it's not perfect. Do watch the series and enjoy the wonderful cast, but you could be forgiven for giving the book a miss. And it's rare that I would suggest viewing a show over reading a book, but there it is.

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