Reviews - Kafka on the Shore

12.7k reviews for:

First International book this year - Murakami writing style is enjoyable and easy to follow which contrasts directly with the hard-to-follow content of this books. There we lots of thought-provoking moments, unanswered questions and an endless amount of metaphors. The side characters were really enjoyable and the story reached did reach a somewhat satisfying conclusion. Need more time to reflect on the themes and discuss it to give it an accurate rating.
3.5 for now.

trongaus's review against another edition

4.0

3.5 stars rounding up; for every part of this book that I loved, there was a part that I hated. Kafka sucked but I would’ve read an entire novel just about the adventures of Nakata and Hoshino. Incredibly fascinating writing and themes though, I’m still not sure I understand what I read but overall I look back with fondness

zoeweissman's review against another edition

DNF, want to come back to this one but I just don’t have the time or patience honestly

dyartemis's review against another edition

I’m going to refrain from giving this book a rating because I can’t decide on whether I like it or not.
That being said the book definitely didn’t live up to the expectations.
The book had all Murakami’s elements, the eccentric encounters, the strong memorable characters, the relative and beauty of the mundane.
However, it lacked coherence, for me it didn’t make sense, it was all vague and obscure ambiguity that resulted to nothing and resolved nothing. I’m not sure I understand this book or the point of it.
Did it make me question a lot of things? Yes it did, as it should, but it kept declining into a whirlpool of metaphors and allegories of nothingness.
The whole point, one would assume, to learn something from these characters, have some kind of takeaway, but instead it was all errands and journeys and stops that were arbitrary. Which was all confusing and no fun.
I have to admit I was very uncomfortable with a lot of the romantic content. But I excepted that it would all lead somewhere, kafka’s family would somehow be linked to Nakata, his incident, the talking cats.
I have a lot of theories about all of it, but they will remain just that, and not in a pleasant way. I’m genuinely very disappointed and I feel like i have being reading a different book than what everyone’s been telling is one of Murakami’s greatest works.