Reviews

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

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rizbee's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

first murakami book. frankly do not see what all the hype about this one is about. i found it excruciatingly difficult to get through and needlessly long. it was a shame because there were small aspects of the story i was really intrigued by (like “cinnamon” and the voice connection). however, we spent the majority of the book doing nothing and just describing/having weird thoughts about women. i don’t see what the point of this was and am overall unimpressed lol. there was some good writing so it ups the score but the content was not for me.

ancientcoconut's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

cal_o's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.75

rjsori's review against another edition

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5.0

Can’t go wrong with a Murakami book! All the sub plots felt jumbled but in all the right ways with the flashbacks serving as context as well as foreshadowing for the later events in the book. All the characters were memorable and in my opinion the pacing was pretty consistent. Definitely recommend!

The best part about this book for me is explaining the plot which I had to do multiple times to family because I read this on the road.

roadrunner95's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

x0pherl's review against another edition

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5.0

It took me a while to get through this, but not because I didn't love it.
I was tempted to give the book four stars, because I think [b:Kafka on the Shore|4929|Kafka on the Shore|Haruki Murakami|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165515991s/4929.jpg|6191072] may be the better work, but the ending of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle changed my mind.
To finish off such a mysterious and elusive story is something that most authors fail at miserably, and here Murakami achieves a near perfect ending.
As with [b:Kafka on the Shore|4929|Kafka on the Shore|Haruki Murakami|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165515991s/4929.jpg|6191072], The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle seems like it will require multiple readings.