Reviews with content warning for Blood - Afterdark

3.5

This book started as a strong five... so what went wrong?
(Admittedly, I rushed to the end which might have impacted my enjoyment.)

Murakami maintains a strange and slow rhythm for the majority of the novel and we are then thrust towards the end without any real preparation. I'm choosing to believe the pacing reflects the time of night. For those awake, the night feels long and once morning arrives, the after-hours adventure is done - without any real warning.

While the story focuses on Mari and, by extension, Eri, I wanted more chapters exploring surrealism and the strange happenings of side characters.

As readers, so many tantalising threads are dangled in front of us. If only Murakami allowed us to catch more of them.

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tij's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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penofpossibilities's review against another edition

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3.0

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marxlee's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

"It's true, though: time moves in its own special way in the middle of the night"

In this book Murakami takes us in the dark time of the day (night) with not a specific character, but with some throughout the hours. I chose to read this book because I thought it would be one thing (because I saw a review) but of course it was another, as we are talking of a Murakami work. It is not my favorite, but it isn't the worst too. A good thing about it, for me, is that it made me want to walk alone in the middle of the night, but we kind of do it with the characters, which is good.
There are three parts I'd to say some things.

1. This layer, like some kind of transparent sponge kind of thing, stands there between Eri Asai and me, and the words that come out of my mouth have to pass through it, and when that happens, the sponge sucks almost all the nutrients right out of them. She's not listening to anything I say—not really. The longer we talk, the more clearly I can see what's happening. So then the words that come out of her
mouth stop making it all the way to me. It was a very strange feeling."

" other places people describing the feeling of not being heard or seen on a conversation, but never like this and you know... I relate the most with the way the chracater chooses to describe it here and finishes with "it was a very strange feeling", because indeed it is.

2. "I do feel that I've managed to make something I could maybe call my own world... over time... little by little. And when I'm inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I'm a weak person, that I bruise easily, don't you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It's like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere."
When Mari says this, that making a world for herself probably means she's a weak person I want to disagree with her and want to tell her that some people want to make a world of their own but can't even stand the thought of it, so creating their own world would require much work and care and courage. Perhaps love too, self love.

3. "In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount."
Me, and maybe an important amount of people, should work on that. On combining your alone-stuff and your collectively-stuff.

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