1Q84: Book 1

There is something about the story, the characters, the way the book is written and the way the story unfolds that kept me up and wanting for more..
i just cannot explain what it is! The concepts and story themselves are simple but reading them is like being taken into another dimension - one where two moons exist, perhaps.. one where each character is essentially “normal” and could be here on our side but has something about it that makes it not quite real.
It was a really good surprise :)
Already starting the second :)

This is my first Haruki Murakami novel that I've read. I have to say that I was totally drawn in by the well crafted characters and the lives they lead. It left me wondering what is real,what is not and contemplating the power of the human element. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is willing to try something a little different. I will most definitely be reading more of Murakami.

A religious cult. A man ceaselessly knocking on doors to collect fees for tv usage. The Little People. Two moons. A dowager. A private investigator. A bodyguard. A ghostwriter. Nine hundred and twenty-five pages of strangeness.

I could write fifty pages about this book and you'd still have no clue what this book is about. I read the whole thing and I have no idea what the whole book was about.

I liked it. But I don't know if you'd like it or not. I suspect you would either love it or hate it.

liked:
-the writing style.

disliked:
-the sexualization of female characters (including a queer romance that just came off as a total man's fantasy, and grown men having sex with prepubescent girls...)

-no exploration into aomame's queerness. felt disingenuous and so inauthentic

there is definitely a way to write an engrossing fantasy about cults and an interesting alter universe kind of setting WITHOUT having weird and gross descriptions of problematic sex scenes with minors. i doubt this would get published today and if so, it would have to be intensely edited to omit several problematic scenes that don't add whatsoever to what makes the book any good...after soooo many pages i found this book to be quite a disappointment.

Lately I've been on a mission to discover new writers, and this is the first of those books.
Separated into 3 books with one overall story (I would be more inclined to call them 3 parts - perhaps it was originally published as 3 separate books) 1Q84 begins in what appears to be our world, then Aomame transitions to the world she takes to calling 1Q84. My feelings are mixed on this book, the overall story was engrossing but the pacing and writing were chaotic. At times Haruki Murakami was almost poetic in his descriptions, yet at other times he was perfunctory enough that I was shocked out of reading. Because of this it took me almost 3 weeks to read, days would go by where I was just not in the mood to get back into it.

Full review posted at:
http://www.mattsrespite.com/2012/01/1q84-book-review.html

This book was wild. The writing was enigmatic. The storyline was excellent until the climax/denouement. Also, I can't help but struggle (probably on a cultural level) at the reactions of certain characters to their circumstances. Nobody every got irate when I thought they should have. In fact, most “setbacks” or mere inconveniences were handled with a quiet stoicism that I felt was unlikely to be universal across all characters; though it was so in this story. Nobody is that accepting of their circumstances, even (or especially) when they have no control.