A review by mich9752
Men Without Women: Stories by Haruki Murakami

0.5

(amalgamation of my review from my journal and goodreads)

It was so boring it literally took me more than 2 years to read because it’s so boring… Eventually I have decided to never finish it because it is so redundant and the stories all feel the same so I felt like I could use my time to read a better book. 

The stories always starts with a depressed guy because the woman in his life left him or died and then he starts to either sexualize other women, have sex with other women, or remind himself of what it was like having sex with the woman who left. All of it described in a way that feels misogynistic because of the way he objectifies the woman in his descriptions. 

I picked up the book thinking it would be about  how men can't live without women, or their emotions after they leave, which it is, but it has too much focus on the sexual aspects that it ruins the story for me. I was also hoping to see sweet moments in their relationships or at least like explanations of how the relationship helped either one grow. But nope. It was just saying that they miss having sex with the woman that left the guy so yeah.. it was not a good book at all.

He describes women in the novel in a really weird, fetish-like way(?) and it makes you feel creeped out the whole time you read it imo. Some parts are interesting but not interesting enough for you to read the whole thing and idk I didn't get what the message was supposed to be. 

I regret buying the book because if you’re gonna go that route at least make it interesting but it is not at all. So yeah… I know people will raise eyebrows at me for rating this the same as Punk 57 but at least Douglas described sex in a better way than Murakami and it was interesting… Only reason why I didn’t rate it a 0 is because the wording is very beautiful outside of the sex scenes. That’s it…