Good Omens Book Blurb

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Perpetuo Carlson

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Aug 3, 2024, 3:56:41 PM8/3/24

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Moving forward, I plan to be posting a mixture of my book/story reviews, word lists, random research dives, links and loves, etc. (The general nerdery, just with some added book reviews because I read almost constantly and have opinions about all that reading!?)

For some background info, I literally could never point to my absolute favorite book until Good Omens. I could gesture vaguely at my favorite series for a while. I could flail my arms wildly at maybe my favorite books in those series. But never could I hold up a book and declare it to be my favorite one single book.

And then I start hearing about The House in the Cerulean Sea. I see it cropping up all over Pinterest and web page ads. The cover is right up my alley. The title? Intriguing. The font? Yes, please.

When I finish The House in the Cerulean Sea, I pause and sigh. And think something along the lines of: "Wow. That was the coziest thing I have ever read. I think I still love Good Omens more, but am I sure? I dunno."

I flip-flopped on that particular question for a while, having also rewatched the Good Omens Netflix adaptation three full times (five partial times with friends or family members) and reread The House a few months back.

The book summary on the back cover is one of those that is incredibly vague but also true, as book summaries so often are. If I hadn't made up my mind that I wanted to read the book before I read the summary, this book blurb probably wouldn't have made me want to read it with how vague it was.

In all seriousness (lol), yes, the main plot of this book boils down to a very bookish, rule-following angel and a rather sweet, devil-may-care demon trying to avert the Apocalypse. (I have a fun fact about that phrase for another day!)

We follow a massive cast of characters through this charmer. This is immediately apparent from the first few pages of the book, which present a cast of characters list (dramatis personae) the way plays do. This was also the first (of many!) charming things that pulled me into the book.

I wanted to watch the show (because it looked delightful), but I read the book first, and ended up watching the show a year after it came out. I also just rewatched not long ago recently because it's an absolute comfort show for me. I swear, the ending always makes me smile so much.

There is romance in Good Omens, do not get me wrong. To paraphrase Michael Sheen, who plays an absolutely brilliant Aziraphale, Good Omens is a love story. We have several love stories (of varying types of love) in the book, but at its heart, Good Omens tells the story of how much an angel and a demon adore the human world and each other.

However, when I say that The House has more romantic scenes, I mean that there are more traditionally rom-com types of scenes. The hand inching closer type. Tips of the shoes touching type. Eyes meeting then flitting away type.

This is what The House in Cerulean Sea gave me. It is absolutely the coziest read I've ever come across so far in my somehow-long-but-also-short life as a reader. The book made me ridiculously happy from the first page to the last, which is why I stayed up until nearly dawn to finish it on the first read.

The plot follows protagonist Linus Baker being summoned to check on an island orphanage's magical charges and the head of the orphanage, Arthur Parnassus. Linus's task: Find out if these kids are a danger to the world, specifically if one in particular is going to destroy the world.

As the book chugs along, we get to watch Linus grow closer to the inhabitants of the house on the sea. And we see Linus bloom and grow into who he was meant to be. Literally everybody blooms and grows because of each other in this book and it's so sweet, I can't.

Perhaps part of why choosing a favorite between The House in the Cerulean Sea and Good Omens is challenging is because The House is a story in a similar vein to Good Omens, just cozier. (And I love cozy!)

I enjoy so many different kinds of books and writing styles. The humor and storytelling of Rick Riordan; the heartfelt, gorgeous dialogue of Rainbow Rowell; the poignant insight and humor from Alice Oseman; the list goes on. There are certain ways of phrasing sentences that hit me and stick with me. Those are the kinds of phrases I get from all these writers: Gaiman, Pratchett, Klune, Rowell, Riordan, Oseman.

There's a line somewhere in The House about not judging Lucy (the oldies-loving six-year-old who happens to be the Antichrist) based on who his father is. There's a similar message in Good Omens. (Just because someone related to you is bad, doesn't mean you are by extension.)

These books both challenge stereotypes and involve a lot of thought-provoking dialogue, with Good Omens doing it in a more humorous way and The House in a more heartfelt way (sometimes to the point of being a little farfetched and cheesy though).

I find that this incredibly apt statement also applies very well to Good Omens. All I'm going to say is we have two sweet characters in each book who happen to be capable of destroying the world if they so will it.

Little Note: Hi there! Sorry for the lack of posts in January; I fell into a bit of a writing slump, among other life events happening that have also required my attention. I\u2019m just including a quick note here that I\u2019m starting to post my book/story reviews here, as I\u2019m sure you can see from the title of this post! I started writing reviews last year and haven\u2019t gotten up enough courage to share them anywhere until now, sooo\u2026 here I go!

TLDR: I love them. If you enjoy heartwarming, kind of kooky stories with lots of charming characters and overall hopeful messages, I\u2019d give these books a try. These are the first two books I could ever point to as my favorite books (and I have read a LOT of books I\u2019ve liked), if that tells you anything.

People will have different ideas of what is \u201Cgood\u201D or \u201Cbest\u201D in a book. Everyone's book tastes are as unique as their fingerprints; you might enjoy a lot of the same books as someone else, but you won't have the *exact* same taste as anyone else.

Honestly, you can also enjoy something without it necessarily being \u201Cgood\u201D as well. (This tends to be where the term \u201Cguilty pleasure\u201D kicks in.) But just because you like it doesn't mean it has to be objectively \u201Cgood.\u201D You can just like it, simple as that.

Freezeframe: I\u2019m pouring over Good Omens. There it is. This is the moment, somewhere well before page 100, that I stop and literally say out loud to no one in particular in an empty room, \u201CI have a favorite book now.\u201D

When I finish The House in the Cerulean Sea, I pause and sigh. And think something along the lines of: \\\"Wow. That was the coziest thing I have ever read. I think I still love Good Omens more, but am I sure? I dunno.\\\"

We have the underlying politics/not-yet-war going on between Heaven and Hell. Then there\u2019s the 6,000 years of Aziraphale and Crowley sooo-not-fraternizing-with-the-enemy. We have the Them\u2019s neighborhood adventures. We\u2019ve got technology-destroying Newt and Professional Descendant Anathema both coming in with Agnes Nutter's nice and accurate prophecies coming to fruition. The list goes on.

Ever since reading Rick Riordan's books, I\u2019ve had a thing for books with swapping narrators. So the fact that Good Omens is told from multiple characters' points of view was one of my favorite aspects of the storytelling in this book.

This book always has one narrator (a third-person omniscient perspective), but the narrator switches focus, jumping around to each character in a way that feels very similar to the way Riordan's chapters leap frog from character to character. The narrator is so stinking cool and just shows why Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett\u2019s works are so highly regarded.