A review by moonknitter
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-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? Yes

4.0

In terms of the plot it was definitely a very interesting book and I loved the magical realism elements and many aspects of how the book was written but I hated he main character. The chapters traded off between essentially the story of Nakata (and later Hoshimo) and the story of Kafka, Oshima and Miss Saeki. I wish the whole book was just the story of Nakata and Hoshimo. These characters were the most loveable, I found myself laughing out loud at things Hoshimo said. On the other hand, Kafka is just a teenage boy. I got very tired of hearing about his cock in this story. I get it, he is a teenage boy and this is a major theme. But all of the Oedipus stuff was pretty weird and I didn’t find him likeable as a chapter. He took himself too seriously and so did Oshima. It also would have been nice to have more female characters who were not just there to be sexual objects for the teenage boy/fulfill his weird mom issues. The gender identity of Oshima was an interesting topic but I felt like the way it was discussed between the two still felt contrived or something. Overall I did like this book but literally could have done without half of it I would hav been happy to just read about Nakata and Hoshimo and what they get up to together. This book also was very easy to imagine as a movie and I could see all of the characters as different actors. 
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