Norwegian Wood

This was a bittersweet story for me. I found myself thinking back to people I have known and family members I have lost, especially in the last half of this book. I've read Murakami's recent stuff and am working backwards now, and I appreciate seeing how his style has changed. This was very much a straightforward story when compared to other Murakami books I've read, and I enjoyed it all the same.

To me, this is a book about coming of age under very difficult emotional circumstances. It's a tale told in a simple and straightforward manner, without surreal elements like those found in other Murakami novels. It's full of sympathetic characters, trying to do the best they can do, and I suspect that this is the reason I didn't feel sad while reading it, even though there's plenty of sad events in the story. A beautiful melancholic novel well worth reading.