"I realize full well how hard it must be to go on living alone in a place from which someone has left you, but there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for."
"In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria."
This book was a strange, dream-like read. I started off so enthralled with it, but sadly I got frustrated around the 300 page mark with all the unexplained strangeness. I do get why people love this book though, it leaves you in this dreamlike state and the writing is very gripping. But after a while, the writing wasn't enough to keep me interested in all the weird things that were going on. Some parts dragged on forever, and some actions and events seemed to be mentioned just for the sake of mentioning them. I don't think some of the characters and their stories were material to the plot, and at times I felt like the plot was getting unnecessarily confusing.
The only reason I pushed through to the end was to see if all the strange things that were going on would've been sufficiently explained- which isn't a bad thing because the storyline was compelling enough for me to want to figure everything out. But through all of the random, confusing and meandering plot points and stories, I lost too much patience to be as fully invested as I was in the beginning. I really wanted to love this book more than I did, and based on all the glowing reviews, I was fully expecting this book to be a five star read. It started off that way, anyway. Instead, it felt more like 3 stars. I am really disappointed that I didn't love this one though, because it started off so strong for me. I won't give up on Murakami though. A lot of people have been telling me to give 1q84 and Norwegian Wood a try so I'm looking forward to see if I like those books.
This book is part of my Read The World Challenge for Japan and for my Top 100 Books of All Time Challenge.
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