Review: Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



For my second Murakami I think I was expecting more. This was a really good book and I enjoyed it immensely, but I think if it had been my first Murakami I wouldn't have been as excited to read another.

So basically this book is about a college student who is very boring. He's a good student, follows the rules, maybe drinks a little much but for the most part he's your average good guy. He has this problem of being attracted to crazy girls, not just your normal crazy girls but girls that have issues. The story itself was fine, I didn't really know where it was going so it still surprised me a little, but I feel like it was kinda always leading up to something but never got there. There was no climax for me.

Like [b:1Q84|10357575|1Q84 |Haruki Murakami|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1359439026s/10357575.jpg|18160093] sex is everywhere in this book, as are the amazing descriptions. I loved 1Q84 because of the story, but the descriptions and details are what made me so interested to read another Murakami. The description of the food, the way the girls looked and the journeys into drunkenness.

One of the reasons I think I'm attracted to this book is because it takes place somewhere real but that is completely foreign to me. I love that Japan is a place I'm familiar with culturally and geographically. I don't really know the cities or why traveling by train is so common, but it's something I can just accept because it's a real place out there, instead of having to imagine what it would be like because the author just created it in his head. Maybe some of the cities he wrote about aren't real, but because so many things are real it makes the whole book feel real. Too many "real"s in that sentence, but whatever.

When the book was over I couldn't sleep for a little bit because I just wanted to think about it. It was really good and I enjoyed it but I don't know who I would recommend it to. Can't give it 5 stars because there were lots of minor things that annoyed me, but the story was so good and like in 1Q84 the stories inside the story were so good too and so detailed. I loved the talk of music and the letter writing. I liked the three female characters but Reiko was by far my favorite and her ending shocked me. Can't decide if I want to go into another Murakami this year though, they seem to need space between.



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