Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Sputnik Sweetheart

I probably would love this book if not for the voyeuristic way Murakami tends to write about women. Part of me does love it, I've read it multiple times and it has left me a wreck, it is very melancholic and emotional, but I always come out of it unsatisfied. I have a complicated relationship with it as it did help me get through a lonely time but I would have a hard time recommending it to other women, especially other queer women as the representation of Sumire and Miu can be so uncomfortable and upsetting.

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saraaaa's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

It's worth noting that this is not a love story between two women, despite being often marketed as such. It was an enticing and beautiful story, but had a lot of flaws.

There was an excessive number of similes that, as evocative and poetic as they were, kept breaking the narrative flow. Take, as an example: "She put an olive in her mouth, with her fingers took out the pit, and threw it in the ashtray, with grace, like a poet that adds a comma to a poem" (rough translation from Italian): now, as poetic as this sounds, a simile helps to picture a scene, an action, a condition more accurately, or more profoundly, if you will; Murakami's figures of speech do none of this. Moreover, this stylistic choice is equally present in the speech and first person p.o.v. of all the protagonists, highlighting its artificiality.

It was impossible not to notice the repeated, obviously useless descriptions of Myu's legs, "taut and solid" body, and short skirt. But, after all, it's a pretty typical approach to... women, in late '90s productions. Much harder to ignore was Murakami's weird obsession with nipples and their consistency, which made me almost believe he doesn't have any of his own.
The sexual scene between the two female protagonists read awfully like a porn scene, and smelled of voyeurism on Murakami's part.

It's uncomfortable for one of the characters, and even more so for the reader, who finds themself reading a first person account of a heterosexual woman trying to convince herself she actually likes homosexual sex, for the sake of a girl she'd almost seen as her child just a few moments before.

Only later things are explained – rather unconvincingly, with a ridiculously acephobic (though the term could almost be anachronistic here) dramatic reveal, that reduces the vitality of a woman to her fertility and sex drive.

Nevertheless, this book also gave me a lot to reflect on. Many deep and complex concepts were present through the whole book, that was heavy on the philosophical side. Told as if they were being directly discussed with the reader, one would find themself giving thought to those ideas naturally.

This was my first work by Murakami, and despite all his flaws, I can't ignore just how good of a writer he is, when it comes to setting up gloomy, tense, dark, mysterious atmospheres – they'd always accompany me much after I'd put the book down.
The ending was, well, not an ending at all, and entirely up for interpretation. Murakami keeps leaping from dream to reality, from reality to hallucination, without a warning, until the boundaries between the two completely blur out and, at the end, they disappear.

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mishsofil's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

He has a way of beautifully depicting abstract feelings... except for the weird scenes and fantasies that no one asked for. Don't think I've ever heard of a Murakami book without at least one uncomfortably explicit description of a woman. Would've genuinely adored this book otherwise.

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marristmass's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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elijahcole's review against another edition

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I’ve read Murakami and was well aware the way he writes women is not the best, however i’ve still found myself sucked into the worlds he beautifully strings together. This book was very different. If you don’t really like how Murakami writes women, just wait until you read how he writes lesbians. And on top of that, the lesbian’s story is narrorated by none other than a man, who of course is in love with one of the women and is constantly narrorating sexual thoughts about her and wallowing in pity that he can’t be with her. as a lesbian myself i couldn’t sit through that, i don’t care if it gets better

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