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A review by donotfeedthebirds
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
1.0
Man, this book. I saw good reviews, put it on my list. It was a complete slog to finish, i was frequently furious with the absolute stupidity of the characters and how painfully annoying they all were. I've not been this mad at a book since I quit reading Great Expectations because Pip was such an unbelievable dumbass.
This book comes with a big ol' content warning for suicide, sexual assault, an array of manic pixie dream girls, and our protagonist the opposing trope of the depressed demon nightmare boy.
I see people say, "these characters are caricatures, don't you get it ya dummy?" Yeah I get it, but I don't like it. The plot and character development feels hamfisted, boring, slow, infuriating. The book embodying the spirit of Holden Caulfield as written by Hemingway. I didn't find the prose to be so "elegiac" (to steal from the bookjacket summary) as to excuse the rest.
I've heard that other Murakami books are fabulous, go read one of those; skip this one, it's not fabulous.
And if you insist, skip the audiobook. If there's a way to make the dialogue worse, the voice actor finds it.
This book comes with a big ol' content warning for suicide, sexual assault, an array of manic pixie dream girls, and our protagonist the opposing trope of the depressed demon nightmare boy.
I see people say, "these characters are caricatures, don't you get it ya dummy?" Yeah I get it, but I don't like it. The plot and character development feels hamfisted, boring, slow, infuriating. The book embodying the spirit of Holden Caulfield as written by Hemingway. I didn't find the prose to be so "elegiac" (to steal from the bookjacket summary) as to excuse the rest.
I've heard that other Murakami books are fabulous, go read one of those; skip this one, it's not fabulous.
And if you insist, skip the audiobook. If there's a way to make the dialogue worse, the voice actor finds it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Sexual assault