The Strange Library
Ratings81
Average rating3.6
WTF was this?! It was so weird, I don't even have words for a review. Not recommended. At all. Listened to on audio instead of the picturesque book. I don't care about elements of Kafka or Gaiman. Appeal to new readers damn it!
Kinda cute, I guess, though I didn't get any deeper meaning from it. Seemed like it was just being weird for weird's sake.
It was fun with the illustrations and differently coloured pages, but overall I can't really recommend it.
I loved this dark, chilling, thought provoking and ultimately moving tale. I beautiful little book. The illustrations and format of the hardback version of this book added tremendously to my enjoyment as I read this short tale.
My first foray into Murakami. In the end I kinda liked it? I’m familiar with Japanese fiction ending in weird and abrupt ways so I would say I don’t exactly hate the ending.
I haven’t read a book in forever so a light read like this was perfect for me. Interested to go into Murakami’s bigger hits like Kafka On The Shore next.
What a fun little read! It's the usual unusual but it's in a classy package and with a gentle kid-friendly story. And, hey, it's centered on a library. Not that it's a library I'd ever want to visit, but it's a library. And the packaging is fabulous. Yes, take a look at this one.
my brain loves the different colored dialogues and wishes that it could become a thing.
I have never ever read anything of the sort as I thought this would be too far fetched for my preference for realistic novels. Shockingly it was okay, even my husband was surprised to hear what I've been reading since anything that is fantasy, sci-fi or similar would never be read by me. Even CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia weren't a hit in my opinion. This book I picked by mistake, was in a hurry but in the end, it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Light and short.
Finished this in one sitting right before bed. A little underwhelming, but the writing easily crafts mental images as you turn each creatively designed page. It is certainly one of the cooler aesthetic books I have read through.
Reads like someone recounting a nightmare, to the extent that I just kind of floated off into it, didn't feel a real sense of jeopardy for the main character because I always had the sense that they'd wake up and be fine (not quite what happened) and partly because the narrator's general age seemed young enough that it felt unlikely anything truly terrible would happen (also not quite what happened). That and it's novella/short story length combined with the cheery/abstract/unsettling art collection meant I didn't have long to be in any particular mood/setting. Surrealist horror with an emphasis on the surreal. I suppose I'm the tiniest bit salty about anyone introducing negative vibes into the idea of visiting a library, though I'm now more aware of the vast potential such a space provides for the imagination to entertain darker scenarios. Yeah, I think I liked it. Not sure I'm willing to go novel length for a Murakami experience yet, unless it is told in vignettes that replicate this experience, that I would break from in between...🤔
⚠️Animal death
