Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

55 reviews

unwound_spring's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.25

haunting, dreamlike, ambiguous

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide and Sexual content

Moderate: Grief and Mental illness

Minor: Infidelity, Cancer, and Terminal illness

gratuitous sex scenes, not recommended for those currently struggling with mental illness or suicidal thoughts

lucysm's review against another edition

dark reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Terminal illness

ziniana's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, and Suicide

Moderate: Death of parent and Terminal illness

Minor: Racism and Xenophobia

leebraries's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

beautifully written. murakami is a wonderful storyteller who makes great use of language, and the translation was simply gorgeous. however, not much happens plot-wise as we are mainly just following toru watanabe as he fucks his way through tokyo and falls a little more in love with his dead bestfriend's ex-girlfriend and this taken girl who says the most out of pocket shit ever. this book is also horny as fuck. 4/5 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, and Mental illness

Moderate: Alcohol, Cursing, Death of parent, Self harm, and Grief

Minor: Misogyny, Rape, Terminal illness, and Self harm

ilaria_d's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Sexual content, and Terminal illness

deadmosquitoonmywall's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

5.0

It's romance based. Good if you don't mind s*x. I cried so hard.
Major trigger warning on this book for s**cide.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

seven people die and only 2 of them didn't go by suicide

akormas's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Terminal illness, Sexism, Mental illness, and Medical trauma

magca's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

Moderate: Terminal illness

Minor: Bullying

literalottie's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

"I don't know, it's stupid being 20," she said. "I'm just not ready. It feels weird. Like somebody's pushing me from behind."

I'll start with the positive - without a doubt, Murakami's writing style is beautiful. What finally encouraged me to pick up this book was seeing the above quote out of context, and I can say that there were many moments that this book really captured the feeling of being lost at that age, the feeling of being stuck while others around you seem to move through life effortlessly. That's something that really resonates with me, and I really appreciated how Murakami captured it so well. I found the characters to all feel very believable and human - although there is definite room for improvement in how Murakami writes women... from what I've heard though, this is a prevalant issue in his work.

However, I disliked the way this book handled sex. Sex, of course, is a natural and healthy part of life, and given that this book could be boiled down in simplest terms to a "love triangle" romance, sex is somewhat of a given, but this book seemed to hyperfocus on it to a fault, and presented sex as an inevitable or necessary part of any male-female relationship or friendship. This particularly came into play at the end, which I won't elaborate on because of spoilers, but suffice to say I felt disappointed at what happened in that last chapter.

And while we're on the topic of sex, there is also a strange, highly disturbing passage in the middle of the book (view spoiler). It was just so unnecessary, had it not been there my rating could have very well been a whole star higher.

This isn't to say I would never want to read a Murakami again - again, he writes beautifully. I do feel like there was a lot to love about Norwegian Wood, but unfortunately it was held back by some more unsavoury aspects that I struggled to look past. I know this is somewhat of an outlier in his bibliography, as he's known for more "surreal" works, which I would definitely be interested in. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Pedophilia, Rape, Death, Suicide, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, and Mental illness

Moderate: Grief and Terminal illness

Minor: Misogyny and Sexism

lostinthelibrary's review

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

I wanted to give Murakami another try as this book was chosen for a book club I am part of but I can now say that he is not for me. All of the aspects that I disliked about The Wind Up Bird Chronicles: meandering plot, annoying characters, cringey sex scenes; they were also present here. It gets an extra .5 stars because of the lack of magical realism elements. Really it was pretty bleak with, as with WUBC, the main redeeming feature being the descriptive writing style and in-depth character searching monologues. Sorry Murakami, I tried.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Infidelity

Moderate: Misogyny, Suicide, Chronic illness, Death, Forced institutionalization, Terminal illness, and Mental illness

Minor: Bullying