Reviews with content warning for Schizophrenia/Psychosis - Norwegian Wood

Murakami sucks at writing women characters but at the same time the way he describes the atmosphere and environment is so beautiful??? It makes you want to continue reading the book despite some very uncomfortable scenes.

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lovelupin's review

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dark emotional reflective sad 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? It's complicated

2.0

I opened this book with astonishingly high expectations, and frankly, for me, it fell flat on its face. I've heard wonderful things about Murakami, but I am quite disappointed with the first work of his that I happened to come across.

This book is a normal love story, with no real plot attributes to be spoken of. Toru Watanabe is maybe one of the least interesting protagonists I have ever read about, with the personality of a white paint chip. The frankly alarming way women are seen throughout this entire book is disgusting,

with Nagasawa and Watanabe being allowed to sleep around and cheat on their partners with no repercussions.
It also seemed that whenever Toru thought about any women, he was never thinking about their personality or their ideas and opinions, but about their bodies or the way they felt in bed. It was unashamedly disgusting, the way Toru remembered no more about Naoko than her appearance and "flesh" in the way he put it. It was honestly quite tiresome how he never had an arc anymore than thinking about the girl he slept with in school and wondering if she had forgiven him! I mean really? Nothing about the way he tossed her aside without explanation, and seemingly used her only for sex. He really only thinks about one thing! I mean he and Reiko are mourning their dear friend and he suddenly has to do it with her? She's nineteen years older than him! I understand that she was into it and everything, but he really seems to sleep with whoever is closest then goes back to the person he "loves" with no consequences. There was no need for him to sleep with Reiko, and the way it was foreshadowed before, the comparison of her body with Naoko's, and the fact she was wearing Naoko's clothes, was sickening! He even says he felt like he was violating a 17 year old while they were doing it! That's a bad sign! It was thoroughly horrifying all the way through. It was very sad as the only character I truly liked was Reiko.

It really made no plausible sense to me that women were falling all over him, even though he has no real personality traits, and he merely views them as objects, as he can just remember their bodies throughout his life and choose through sex appeal!
While this book leans heavily on philosophy and introspection, the topics of death and grief, and love that it cover were put in a very trite way. The ideas all seemed very repetitive and not very new. "Death is part of life", "love is complicated" blah blah blah. I liked the theme of loyalty

although Watanabe didn't do a great job of that either, saying he would stay loyal to Naoko then kissing Midori and letting her give him a hand job- saying It WaSnT TeChNicAlLy SeX and pretending to stay loyal! Not very fair on either of them I say.

but that was done in a very cliche way too, and not executed properly.
I honestly don't want to say anymore about this book, and although this was basically a rant, I do want to stress that I may come back to read Murakami's more fantastical books, and see what I think of those.

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savvyventer's review

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emotional medium-paced

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

4.75

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dizzymissliz's review

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dark reflective sad 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

3.5

what an odd, depressing little book.
the writing was genuinely beautiful and the translation had a reflective flow that demonstrated the author's way with words. the only reason my rating is so low is because the book was a bit boring TO ME. i think it was a good book, and i liked the way that toru changed throughout the years. but the treatment of women was really nauseating and the story didnt go anywhere! it was just depressing- in a thoughtful way, ill say that, - and i felt no empathy with any of the characters.

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lavender_lake's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-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

4.0

Poetic and full of beautiful sentiments.

Sadly, the female characters seem to be mostly vessels for the protagonist’s sexual / romantic self exploration.

Also: a LOT of suicide

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lillireads's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

Still can‘t decide if I like this piece or not. Normally, I instantly fall in love with Murakamis books but this time in took me a while.

Definitely some interesting charakters, especially Reiko! Be prepared for some weird and (in my opinion) unnecissary sexscenes as usual. I do really like how loneliness and isolation were portrayed while I also think that this was the part that made this read really depressing.

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