As I was reading 'American Gods' for the first time (I know, I know, I should have read it ages ago) I thought I had a bead on what was going to happen with Laura. When we found out what the eagle stones were, I thought that Shadow would, of course, not kill a thunderbird, but that it would turn out that Wednesday's fake eye had been one of the eagle stones and that Shadow would use it to save Laura and have a somewhat happy ending. Obviously, this was not the case. But did anyone else get that impression? Or did I just conjure it out of nowhere without a basis in anything?

You're not alone. I like happy endings too, and while I didn't think of Odin's eye as being the eaglestone, I did think there was a chance that Shadow would get one somehow and save Laura.

What I really wanted to happen, though: he should have stayed with Bast. Hehe.

not really, I didnt like Laura that much. I was hoping he would hook with Bast

I was pretty sure Laura was gonna stay dead for some reason. Her scenes with Shadow as a ghost worked so well, it would've spoiled it for me if she had somehow returned to life.

On the other hand, I thought Shadow would hook up with Sam somehow, even though she was a lesbian.

In the end, I'm glad neither of them happened and Shadow's left at the end of the book as a loner. There's just some bittersweet perfection about his relationship with those women and him being alone.

Oh, I agree, it was a good ending. I just expected something else.

I know I was hoping Laura would live.