Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

This book read like a fever dream. However, the replacement of seemingly central characters half way through, as well as a few other loose ends left me feeling like the story was incomplete. If I’m going to press on through what is at times a bit of a slow hard slog, I want a bit more payoff. Will try another Murakami one day, but probably not one 600 pages long.

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gxceli's review

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dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

1.75

You either love it or hate it, I spent 540 pages hating it but hate-reading until the end so I could say I finished it, but the last however so many pages I enjoyed. And when I say hating it, I mean it. I almost put the book down so SO many times. Not to mention, it gets very gory at times - if you're not into that I recommend either entirely skipping the war retelling scenes or not picking up the book.

You have to be able to look past the male gaze-iness (and boy, is it strong) and be able to accept that the plot has little to no consistency, despite the writing itself being pretty redundant a lot of the time.

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theropfather's review

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective relaxing 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? It's complicated

4.0

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amelody's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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dsalazar's review

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

Really great read. There were parts where I did disconnect but that’s because it got a little too much into history or felt drawn out. Another minor hang up I had was with the sheer amount of information being thrown at you, at a very fast pace, in an intricate way. I get this was the intention and it may just be that it requires a second read. It kind of reminds me of Oppenheimer (2023) in that regard where it was fast paced and lots of details and Names are thrown out and the timeline isn’t chronological so a second or third watch helps with solidifying some details.

This is all minor because overall I enjoyed the depth the characters had. This is my first Murakami book and it was exactly what I expected in terms of magical realism and explaining a mystery just enough that you want to know more but also would rather not know at the same time. So many unsettling scenes that were page turners. He captures complex emotions so well I had to put the book down during some of the more (literally) torturous chapters.

100% recommend

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sashaanauo's review

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mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.25

originally rated a 3.75 directly after reading, bumped up to 4.25 after sitting on it more. i loved trying to connect a lot of murakami's dots while reading, and ended up being more satisfied than I was after initially putting it down. love his writing style, even though it was incredibly slow, i was still engaged! wish he wrote about the women characters more normally lol

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