I picked this book up when I went to Japan in November 2019 and was so excited. Thrilled. I love Murakami and this book was set near where I spent my favourite part of the trip (i.e. Hakone and Odawara, and generally around Fuji), what's not to love?
I wanted to love this book. I love Murakami's style, I loved reading descriptions of places I'd just visited and was now missing, and I love the "journey is more important than the destination" quality of his mysterious magic realism plots.
But oh boy. This dragged on. And on. And on. I think it would have worked with significant editing but, as it is, it doesn't hold a candle to other (wonderful) long novels of his like Wind Up Bird or 1Q84.