This book is magnificent. The plot is meh, but we're not reading for the plot. We're reading for the imagination, the ideas, and the characters.
Shadow can be a boring character, and hell they even point it out. That this is a guy that isn't reacting to his dead wife, or Gods (new and old), and just all these other things that normal people would react to. The fact that they explain it and incorporate it into the story really amazed me. And for as boring as early Shadow can be (because at the halfway point he does grow), he really grows on you. But what Gaiman does best is relish in the sites, the Gods, the ideas that these people came with the those that traveled over to the States. It's a beautiful book. Truly worth a read.