Views are 100% my own
As I mentioned in my last post, if you've known me a while you may have heard of this book! 1Q84 is written by the amazing Japanese author Haruki Murakami, who has also written Norweigan Wood - also a great book.1Q84 was greatly anticipated by the literary world because it had to be translated which of course took a while! I won't give too much away in this review, and of course this is my opinion!
Book 1 & 2 were published first by Murakami and I got my mits on it last Christmas. The story involves two main narratives, Aomame and Tengo, whose lives seem very distant but get increasingly intertwined as the book progresses. Again, I really don't want to give any of the main plot away to any prospective readers but there is an excellent twist which came as a complete surprise to me! The narrative is deep and engaging, the characters moving but also I found I could relate to some of the concepts in the book.
One negative to the Book 1 & 2 possibly could be the consistency of the content. This probably is just a personal thing, as sometimes I find it hard to stay engaged in a book for such a long period of time and it did take a while to read, despite me being a fast reader. I stopped reading it during exam periods etc, and overall it took me 2-3 months to complete. Murakami possibly may have necessarily fleshed out the novel with somewhat unimportant facts and characters, but maybe I just didn't link up the story lines well!
I received Book 3 as a gift at Easter, and couldn't wait to get started, as Book 2 is left on a huge cliffhanger! Murakami's strong point, definitely. In Book 3 a third narrative is introduced, which at first I didn't enjoy because I didn't like the character of Ushikawa, however I guess he isn't meant to be liked! As the book progressed though, his narrative was definitely an integral part of the storyline.
As usual, I was gobsmacked at how Murakami managed to intertwine all the characters and their individual stories, and was left very happy at the outcome of the novel.
I would rate this book 9/10 - a must-read if you like Murakami's writing style! If you haven't read any of his works before, I suggest reading Norweigan Wood (see review on my old blog here) as it is shorter but you still get a feel for his writing style.
Has anyone else read 1Q84, or any of Murakami's books?
Are you inspired to read this book?
Feedback on my reviews is always appreciated, I want to make them a regular thing!
No comments:
Post a Comment