I was a bit wary going into this book. It's advertised as a book focusing on the pop culture phenomenon side of Godzilla, and I was afraid that that's all the book would discuss. Luckily that proved to be untrue. William Tsutsui talks in length about not only how Godzilla has affected pop culture, but also about the actual Godzilla films, the influences on Godzilla, the psychology of Godzilla, the infinite rip-offs of Godzilla, the nostalgia and sentimentality of Godzilla, etc. It's indeed a very broad book and at least briefly touches on nearly all the facets of Godzilla one could ask for. It's more than a book on pop culture, that's for certain. One thing I must compliment is the book's bibliography. It's fairly massive for a book of this length and tone (the book is just over 200 pages, the bibliography is 13 pages). It's well put together and the author clearly did a multitude of research (he is an historian after all). I'll definitely be using this bibliography for reference, further reading, etc. I might add that the Index is well put together as well.
And so we come to yet another case where Goodreads' lack of half-stars forces me to rate a book lower than I'd like in order to prevent rating it higher than I'd like, and in turn forcing me to specify my rating in the review itself rather than the actual rating. A very respectable 3.5 out of 5 stars; definitely a worthwhile read for everyone from die-hard Godzilla fans to newbies who'd like to learn more.
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