Matt Whyman

The Savages are unlike any family around. They have a secret that keeps their family bond so great. Food dominates their lives. They always sit together for dinner and celebrate every so often with a feast. Titus, the head of the family, wishes to keep the traditions passed down to him from his parents. When his eldest daughter, Sasha, announces she's going out with a vegetarian he knows that no good can come from this relationship. The reason being not only is Jack a veggie eater (a most show more despised type of consumer of food) but The Savages like their meat on the human side.

I was thrilled to discover this book and start reading something so different then what you usually find on bookshelves. Just to be made clear the family are cannibals but they don't like to be called that. They eat human for the nutritional value and the taste that you can't get out of your mind. They don't eat people all the time - No, only on special occasions. This story has very dark humor attached to it if you can tell. It was deliciously wicked. Only towards the end was it a bit too harsh and grim for my tastes but it's when everything suddenly is built up that I saw the very real things they did and ate. It wasn't all talk anymore but reality - it was pretty scary.

This story centralized on family. Family is very important to Titus who takes down companies for a living. He doesn't know it yet but someone is investigating him to see if they can catch him doing anything illegal. His wife, Angelica, is a very sharp woman who with a single glance can leave you feeling cold. She racked up quite a debt because of her shopping needs which leads to her having to rent out the bottom floor of her home for magazine ads every so often. Katya is the youngest child; she's just beginning to get all her baby teeth so soon she will be ready for her first feast. Ivan is the middle child who tries to seek attention by pulling pranks. But, his pranks go too far. He's very into the whole eating people so no wonder he has such a dark humor and attitude about people. Finally, Sasha (my favorite Savage) is coming into her own and begins dating a boy who her parents don't approve of. She's so very sensible, logical, and mature in some ways. She's also very relatable because who hasn't had parents who embarrassed them in front of friends or the like? Or who hasn't wanted to challenge themselves or separate themselves from the mold? I just adored her - the way she thought through things and knew her own mind was refreshing for a teenage character. There was still some teenage attitude but it was all for a good cause and it didn't bother me at all.

You already know in the beginning of the book that it got out that they ate human flesh. The rest of the book is an account of the events that led up to their secret being revealed. There is a lot of discussion of food in this story. At some points in the story there were characters that thought themselves better because they were Vegan or Vegetarian which might bother some people but there were people who were not so extreme trying to see start a new eating lifestyle. I think the story was made for a good laugh at the way we feel about food and what people eat - Carnivores vs. Herbivores and the like. It was interesting to see the extreme side of that type of discussion. I found The Savages to be funny in its own way but sometimes downright scary. What I really loved about this story was the variety of characters and how they thought and spoke their minds. Again Sasha was my favorite character but the whole entire family was intriguing and made this book worth reading. show less

I read the Good Omens novel only a few weeks before watching the Amazon-BBC miniseries. I enjoyed the novel, and absolutely LOVED the show. With co-author Neil Gaiman as showrunner, a brilliant cast and a dedicated director, the show perfectly captured the spirit of the novel. It had new material to surprise long-time fans, but much of the original story as well. I enjoyed it so much that I ordered this companion book as soon as I discovered it.

The book provides a lot of context for the show more show, including concept art and abundant information about the adaptation process. There’s also some historical background on previous attempts to adapt the material and an exploration of the filmmaking process (location, casting, special effects). One running theme throughout was the desire of Gaiman, and by extension all the filmmakers, to honor Terry Patchett. In addition to his famous fedora and many of his books in Aziraphael’s shop, Gaiman took extra pains to ensure the parts of the novel that were distinctly Terry’s made it into the adaptation- such as Agnes Nutter. Moreover, there are several heartwarming anecdotes about the friendship between the two authors.

However, the best parts for me were when the book addressed the changes from the novel to the screen. Episode three’s unusually long precredit sequence is once such instance and Gaiman goes into detail about why he created it for the show. As a screenwriter, he is keenly aware of the differences between the two mediums and what audiences need from each.

Overall, this is an excellent tie-in for fans of the show and novel. It’s a beautiful book, with many behind the scenes pictures, artwork and interviews. Highly recommended. show less

I love behind-the-scenes looks into my favorite media, and this provides an excellent look. There were several things I wanted to know more about after watching the show and reading the original novel, and most of them got answered in this book!! It's wonderful to read the interviews from the actors and crew talking about how much they loved working on the project and with each other.

Companion books to movies and TV shows are always a bit of a dice roll when it comes to their quality. While they're usually filled with interesting anecdotes and tons of pictures, they have a habit of feeling little more than a fluff piece used as advertisement for that film/TV series. Luckily, this isn't the case with either of the two books released as tie-ins for Amazon Prime and BBC's recent adaptation of Good Omens. Both books - a traditional companion and a book featuring all of Neil show more Gaiman's scripts for the series - are excellent reads, managing to be both informative and worthwhile reads even for those who know everything there is to know about the series and its creation.

This is a gargantuan of a book. Dimension-wise, it's as big as a sheet of paper and as thick as a textbook. Between its covers is a very well-written account of the creation of the Good Omens TV adaptation, from its infancy all the way through its post-production. Included are an enormous array of interviews with the cast and crew, plenty of photographs from behind the scenes, and a litany of other tidbits that should please even the biggest fan of the series. Whyman's time spent on the set has given him a great vantage point from which to write this account of the making of the series and the interviews throughout the book reveal plenty of new information about the creation of the series that fans won't be able to find anywhere else, making this a must-read for those who want to know everything about this series.

I appreciated how well-structured this book was. Many other companion books of this nature hop around from subject to subject as they detail the creation of whatever thing they're covering, but here, it's formatted (more or less) in an episode-by-episode basis, covering topics as they appear within the narrative of the show. It's a great way of formatting such a book and lets readers read behind the scenes secrets of the episodes they just watched as they can pretty easily tell when the subject switches to something that hasn't occurred yet. That being said, I wouldn't read this until you've seen the series as it does contain some spoilers for the show and how it differs from the novel.

I don't often talk about the physical aspects of a book - as I'm typically an ebook reader - but with this one, I must. It's simply a gorgeous book. It's bound very well - though slightly tighter than I'd prefer - which makes it very easy to lay on a table and read. It's very big, which does make it a bit hard to hold but it's no worse than holding a textbook (and weighs a bit less than an average textbook). And, best of all, are the pages themselves. They're thick, glossy pages that reproduce color remarkably well. It feels like a very high-quality book which, for the price, is pretty impressive.

Overall, The Nice and Accurate Good Omens TV Companion is an excellent companion book to an excellent TV series. It's filled with a massive amount of information, lots of wonderful photos, and a ton of revealing interviews, all bound together in a beautiful book. It's a must-read for fans of the series and I absolutely recommend it. show less