It was great to revisit London through a fantasy world like this and it's Neil Gaiman so you know it's a well written story.

Lovely! Gaiman's writing is so familiar to me at this point that it reading a book by him just feels cozy and good. Loved the "underground" motif and many of the characters.

My first experience reading Gaiman and I loved it! Surreal and funny and sad and interesting.

I don’t think Neil Gaiman is capable of writing a bad book. The imagination and creativity that went into this story is insane - from the life-sucking Velvets, to the Earl’s Court in a subway car, and the Angel Islington in the British Museum - everything was so well thought out and whimsical. The characters travel to different places constantly, each with their own surprises and special kind of magic/inhabitants. It was so incredibly fun to follow the characters through each destination - the floating market, the abandoned hospital, Down Street, Serpentine’s home, as well as the previously mentioned places.

I liked the darkness of the story with death not being uncommon, but the cheeky humor mixed into the writing. Richard was an endearing main character, even if a bit of an idiot, but a lovable one.

I appreciate that the exposition lasted as little time as possible to allow the reader to immediately jump into the action with Door being pursued by Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, who are actually extremely frightening. All of London Below is a nightmare to be honest.

The end is kind of frightening to me in that Richard Mayhew chooses to return to London Below, after successfully returning to his old life, but quickly becoming disillusioned with how confined it is and how everyone there is bound by expectations.

Finally, a couple criticisms. The first is that I wished more emphasis and build up was done for making Richard the beast slayer. There was a little foreshadow but I didn’t feel that there was nearly enough for how big the task was made out to be. Second, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just an observation: the entire time Richard is in London Below feels like a climax, which makes the actual climax not feel as climatic. There entire thing is exciting but the final battle does feel less important due to constantly being on the edge of my seat.

TL;DR
Whimsical, magical, nightmarish but in the good way. I have never read a good with this amount of creativity.

for some reason, I kept picturing the characters as the cast of Cats the musical

I was feeling really sad because I thought at the beginning this book wasn't as good as others Gaiman's works, but it's perfect, some chapters are incredibly outstanding.

Gaiman's storytelling is one of my favorites and this story did not disappoint! The world building was vivid and felt like something I could easily see in the real world. I love fantasy for its ability to explain the unexplained or frustrating. Here, Gaiman sheds light on those who have slipped through the cracks in society and what happens when they do. I loved this rich telling of those who do fall through and painting their stories as not just different than our own in "Above London" but more interesting and exciting. Parts were disturbing to read and others I couldn't get enough of! Can't wait to dive into more of his work!

It's books like this that make me glad I don't line in Neil Gaiman's head.
Creepy, wild, wildly original, and occasionally hard to follow. A Gaiman book is never like anything else. Glad I read it, not sure I would do so again.

Beautiful book. One of the best fantasy books I've ever read.