CW: Plot revolves around a false rape accusation.

This is... not Murakami's strongest work. It's sort of a rehash of a lot of his common themes, in a rather muddy story that leaves things unresolved (I mean... more unresolved than usual). The main crux of the plot left me cold, and there was a bit much of the "females are magic" trope (whether it was the vibrant, otherworldly energy of young women or the comfortable, intuitive wisdom of older women).

There are things I liked about it, but mostly they felt like pale shadows of prior Murakami works, most particularly [b:1Q84|10357575|1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3)|Haruki Murakami|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1359439026s/10357575.jpg|18160093] (the erotic dream/nightmare thing) and [b:Norwegian Wood|11297|Norwegian Wood|Haruki Murakami|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924361s/11297.jpg|2956680] (adolescent friendships/romances, nostalgia, loss).

The writing in general also seemed a bit more uninspired than usual. I think this book had a different translator than his prior novels, so I don't know whether that's true of the original version or could be due to the translation.