Reviews with content warning for Eating disorder - Men Without Women: Stories

All these stories follow similar themes and people, almost all of them feature an affair and a lonely male protagonist. Ones that stuck out to me were Kino, Drive my car and Yesterday. But as a whole, the collection was just ok. Most of the stories just felt like different versions of eachother. And this being a Murakami book, the women were all written quite poorly.

Content Warnings

audc's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

A large portion of the story is men’s perspective (as expected). Halfway through the book, I just wanted to stop. I think you get a wrong perspective or implication of women lurking and waiting to cheat. Either it’s a thing in Japan or Murakami has some stuff to work through.

A lot of mention of songs (appreciated that).

There’s an amount of stuff written that I don’t understand what the author was trying to get across or whether they really are ignorant (;misogynistic).

“That really turned me on…Maybe it was because I was so turned on that my period started almost immediately after that.”

Unfortunately, the relationships that are explored between men and women is sexual (often with infidelity on the woman’s part) and the way women described often relates to whether they’re conventionally attractive or unattractive.

Very simple, nail-on-the-head descriptions. Perhaps, that’s possibly why many of the stories just blend together monotonously.

I had a lot of questions about what a book titled “Men Without Women” would be about.
At first; When would a man not have multiple women in his life? What sort of impact did these women have one these men’s lives?,
And later; Does a relationship with a woman/women only count through a consensual agreement? What about friendships?

“…losing one woman means losing all women.”

Favorites: (Drive My Car) , (An Independent Organ) , and (Samsa in Love) I just liked the premise of the story.
The last story (Men Without Women) was an okay ending.

Content Warnings

veroer's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark reflective sad fast-paced

4.75

Content Warnings

eve81's review

Go to review page

dark reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Content Warnings

abbiewhite's review

Go to review page

reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

I loved the writing style, however i would not pick this up again and would only recommend to certain people. It’s a beautifully written short story collection, however some were interesting and thus fast paced however other were boring and slow paced and i found those harder to read (personal preference). I found it clever how it’s called ‘men without women’ but all stories focused on women, even though the male figure was the main character they were the subplot. It definitely a classic romance but I did enjoy that aspect of it. My favourite short stories were an independent organ(trust the process - it’s shocking *TW - ED*), kino and men without women!

Content Warnings

More...