Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

14 reviews

vedaviolin's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.0

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kolyass's review

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adventurous challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

One of my favourite books of all time. 4.5/5 stars though, because Murakami can’t restrain himself from subtly hinting at sexual things with his underage female characters. Seriously dude, get a grip. This isn’t helping your story.

I think Kumiko is the female character with the most agency in Murakami’s signature plot structure. Which is:

- Boy falls in love with a girl
- Girl can’t reciprocate that love, is being consumed by something evil within her and leaves the relationship
- Boy tries to defeat that evil, usually fails

Kumiko was the one to end her own suffering. She dealt the final blow, not Toru. I liked the final battle. You really get a sense of the strength of their marriage through this kind of teamwork. They are a very likeable couple.

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dakotahreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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anastasiamakes's review against another edition

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Just too literary. The MC was beige personified, stuff just happened to him. There was no real core plot, just random mysterious events. And the nature of all the female characters and their relationships to the MC made me uncomfortable, something which I understand to potentially be part of a wider trend in Murakami's works. Not for me.

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kaitlyn_avecado's review

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slow-paced

1.5

I just...So many people said this book was 10 out of 10. I've read one other of his books, but after reading this.....I'm never reading Murakami again. I hate how his books focus on an uninteresting, unemployed male character who never seems to care about anything happening around him. Murakami's portrayal of female characters is the kicker for me. He only writes about eccentric women who float about the protagonist and have sex with him. It feels like he adds trauma to the female characters to make them "deeper/more interesting". I slogged through this book hoping it would get better. Finally, some plot unfolds in the last 50 pages. Not worth it. SKIP

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m4rtt4's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A new drinking game: take a shot every time Murakami mentions someone's breasts.

I read this in English a couple years ago and it didn't hit me quite as hard as Murakami's other thicker novels, thought it was just a language issue and now re-read it in my native tongue. Turns out it wasn't the language, it was the story or maybe me. Not bad this time either, a solid more-than-three-stars, even better if you exclude the excessive #menwritingwomen scenes Murakami's unfortunately known for – and this time, sexualising a minor?? Poor Mei/May. My favourite scenes were the ones set around the war times Lieutenant Mamiya's story and Akasaka Muscot's childhood, though I also liked the Kano sisters and Mei/May a lot and let's be honest, plot-wise there wasn't much to dislike, just not much to really love either.

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