1Q84 Book 1 (1Q84, #1) in What's the Name of That Book???

May 07, 2013 El rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: society-went-boom, 1001-books-list, 21st-centurylit, big-effing-books, library-borrow, peer-pressure

There have been a few conversations that occurred in my home while I was finishing this book today. They all involved my boyfriend trying to talk and me yelling "BITCH, C'MON!" To break up some of the monotony of this, occasionally I'd give him a rundown on where I was in the reading process. "C'mon, 100 more pages!" "Babe, just 45 more pages..."

What's funny is to look at what I just wrote makes it sound like I was really involved in this book and he was distracting me from a really awesome stor There have been a few conversations that occurred in my home while I was finishing this book today. They all involved my boyfriend trying to talk and me yelling "BITCH, C'MON!" To break up some of the monotony of this, occasionally I'd give him a rundown on where I was in the reading process. "C'mon, 100 more pages!" "Babe, just 45 more pages..."

What's funny is to look at what I just wrote makes it sound like I was really involved in this book and he was distracting me from a really awesome story and I was gonna cut him. In reality, while it was a fine book, the majority of my ire directed at him and his mouth was that a) this book is due at the library tomorrow and I refuse to extend this check-out and b) I just wanted to finish the fucking book. Sweetie-baby, I promise I will rub your feet when I'm done, just please let me finish this book before my fucking head explodes. Head-explosion doesn't help anyone.

I turned into a dude watching a football game while reading this book. "You can talk all you want if you just let me finish this, I'm almost done, hold on, don't fall apart yet..." Total role reversal in this joint tonight.

So. The thing is that I don't really like Murakami all that much. I've read him, and I continue to read him, but when I'm done I wonder why I took the time. It's not that it's all shit-poor, but there's always something lacking. This is a really long book, over 900 pages, and while normally that gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning, these 900+ pages were sort of... unnecessary. It's filled with a lot of repetitious details, boring sequences that don't move the plot along, and it's like Murakami was trying to pull a David Lynch with this one. And, c'mon, let's be honest. No one can be David Lynch but David Lynch.

It's a crazy story, and it's really no bad, but (like my reviews, ahem) it went on entirely too long. Except, unlike my reviews, Murakami gets paid the big bucks and there's no excuse for it.

I'm sure someone is going to try to make a movie of this at some point and I'll totally see it. It'll be totally Hollywoodized and it'll be like, I dunno, Jesse Eisenberg and Amanda Bynes and I'll hate it. But if it's done right it could be pretty decent.

Whatever, I'm just happy to be done. ...more

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Jan 24, 2012 Christina rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, translated

I had this 900+ page book for three weeks with very, very little time to read. I couldn't renew it because someone else had a hold; I realized, in spite of everything that was ingrained in me as a child, I might have to keep this book a few days overdue. I simply could not return it to the library unfinished. On the day it was due, I brought it when I went to work (hardcover, p.s.-not light) and read it on the train, at lunch, and finally finished it on the bus after work on the way to the gym, ...more

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Oct 26, 2016 Janet rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: weird-in-a-good-way, fantasy

I had to create a new shelf for this book, because I wasn't sure if it was fantasy, or science fiction, or simply a very long, very peculiar, Victorian novel. I ended up classifying it as "strange."

It is hard to describe the plot because I'm still not sure what it was about. When a book leaves me this baffled I generally stop reading about 50 pages in, but in this case I was too interested in figuring out the mystery and too involved with the characters to even consider dropping it.

There are two ...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Sophia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own, mainstreamfiction, 2011, translated

Here I again encounter the problem with the GR rating system not having half stars -- I've given some truly mediocre books three stars for having an interesting premise, so I need to give this book more than that, but it's not really a great book. Its premise is much better than "interesting", and I'm probably judging more harshly because I read a lot of Murakami this year and I know what he's really capable of doing with his prose. Mostly I think the book suffers from having been written and pu ...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Melissa Rochelle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned, arc

I loved the first part. The second part absolutely killed any interest I had going in. It's just so repetitive! I can see quite clearly why it was released as a three-book series in Japan...why didn't that happen in the US? Why was it published as one repetitive, unnecessarily long book?

I stopped at the beginning of the third book. I still remember what happened in the first two-thirds because it is a very interesting story, but it just doesn't have that need-to-read-ness that a REALLY long book ...more

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