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I first started reading this book and honestly wanted to just chuck it in the bin. I said very mean things about the protagonist under my breath.

Surely, I said, a Protagonist means that they are pro and totally into furthering the story. Surely, Protagonist is the similar to Proactive and Productive.

I was wrong. The word Protagonist, in its basic form is not similar to proactive. It simply, from the Greek plays, means the principle character or the first speaking character.

However, I maintain that the kind of protagonist that most people want to read about is one that actually bloody does something!

History/Language lesson over.

Neverwhere is a book that TRIES to be clever and magical. In many senses it utterly manages to be magical and creative and fun. It fails, however, to be clever. There are so many lines in this book intending to be dry wit and just come off dry stupid.

Allow an example:

There are four simple ways for the observant to tell Mr Coup and Mr Vandemar apart: first, Mr Vandemar is two and a half heads taller than Mr Croup; second, Mr Croup has eyes of a faded, china blue while Mr Vandemar's eyes are brown; third, while Mr Vandemar fashioned the rings he wears on his right hand out of the skulls of four ravens, Mr Croup has no obvious jewellery; fourth, Mr Croup likes words, while Mr Vandemar is always hungry. Also, they look nothing at all alike.

Oh! I see what you did there! *Kat laughs, slapping her knee with her hand in amusement*

No, not really. If he'd left out these lame little lines I think I probably would have enjoyed this novel a whole lot more.

Just about every other character in this story is awesome except for the protagonist. Give me a story about Marquis de Carabas and I will read it in a second. Honestly, fantastic character right there. Tell me I have to read another whiny missive about Richard Mayhew and I will likely stick hot pokers into my eyes first.

I get it. I really do. It's a journey. He has to LEARN and GROW and CHANGE. But he takes a REALLY long time to do it and he only ever grows to be slightly less pansy, soft and annoying. The total character growth comes to equal someone who doesn't just sit idly by and let people take stuff from him.

Let me give you an example. He met a girl who was unconscious in the streets and bleeding to death. He takes her home. This causes his fiancee to break up with him. He then goes through a lengthy process to get the girl back where she came from. Once he does this he then loses his job, his apartment and all his money. He then goes to find the girl for a) an explanation and b) help. Without her help he will probably die as another side effect of having met her is that he has two psychopathic killers on his tail.

She simply apologizes and walks away, abandoning him. So what does he do? Does he chase her down and gently remind her that she owes him a favor? Does he barter and trade what he can, whilst trying to lure the killers into a trap so that he can some how defend himself? No. I will now transcribe from the book EXACTLY what he does.

Richard leaned against a wall, and listened to their footsteps, echoing away, and to the rush of the water running past on its way to the pumping station of East London, and the sewage works. "Shit," he said. And then, to his surprise, for the first time since his father died, alone in the dark, Richard Mayhew began to cry.

He decides to stay there and die. That's right, folks. He just stays there waiting to die.

Boo-fucking-hoo.

Ya know, I don't accept this crap from a female character - nor do I accept it from a man. How the hell am I suppose to sympathize with someone who so blithely lets everything he has slip through his fingers because he can't speak up and demand explanations or some kind of help? This level of pitiful doesn't help the audience empathize - it makes them think your protagonist is an idiot.

The plot is pretty good - despite everything being painfully obvious and predictable at the end.

The world building is fantastic. It's probably the best thing about this book. It's really creative and fascinating and interesting.

Over all, it was an alright read. It wasn't great. I labored through until the last half where it began to pick up and markedly improve. Thus only three stars. Had the first half been more like the last half then it would have earned four.