Reviews

Great book. A little long winded, but considering the length I was captivated for the majority of it. It is definitely another masterpiece to Murakami's long list of other amazing novels. Well worth the read, if you have time. Potentially, it a book to be read when in jail, or when you had to hide out for a long time (Thank you, Tamaru).

amynguyenn's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

4.0

wasthursday's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

nongshaw's review against another edition

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3.0

nah yeah

marrlee713's review against another edition

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3.0

Update a decade later: Having read a few other contemporary Japanese novels (1Q84 was my first!!), I now understand that dropping into a story, spending some time with the characters, and then departing their lives, which appear to continue on without an audience (and without the tidy ending to which I have grown accustomed) is a common enough storytelling method, and I’m much more comfortable with it now. I simply dove into the deep end of the pool. Changing my rating accordingly, as it was a richly immersive book that kept me turning hundreds and hundreds of pages.

I'm not quite sure how to feel about this book - while the world Murakami created was engaging and the mystery demanded attention, in the end...I was left underwhelmed. I think Murakami brings this upon himself by repeatedly conjuring the ghosts of Dostoevsky, Chekov and other writers, writers whose works caused me to see the world differently, or to carry their stories around with me long after I finished the story. However, the world of 1Q84 melted away from me—like fog burning off—the moment I finished the last page. The more bizarre or mysterious characters that I wanted to understand, or at least know more about, turn out to be mere plot devices for the more pedestrian main characters. I finished the book thinking, "1000 pages for that?"

jannak's review against another edition

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5.0

Normally I save 5-star ratings for beloved books - the ones I want to pick up and re-read over and over again. This was not one of those books. But I'm rating it highly because I rarely find myself as utterly and totally caught up in the world of a book as I did reading this. A NYT book review included the following quote, which describes my own thoughts in a much more coherent fashion: “Murakami is like a magician who explains what he’s doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers...But while anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it's the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves.”

auntted's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

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