ellemaddy's Reviews (1.09k)

a debauchery.

dnf at 50% i cannot handle any more description of the sky, it was too much for me. i can’t stand the writing, the plot and the characters’ motivations to do the heist were flimsy at best. the fact that a chinese company decided to hire literal 20 year olds who have never done a heist before to steal important pieces of art was mindblowing to me. everything felt so contrived and juvenile. the heist part of the book was done way too quickly, we as the reader were spared from the details of the heist itself. why? the characters felt like a soggy piece of cardboard, try as i might to care about them, i simply couldn’t. i don’t care, can’t relate, can’t believe any of this. bye!

it’s 3 am right now and I just finished this book. i’m literally writing this review with my eyes half closed so don’t expect coherent thoughts. (actually, never expect coherent thoughts from me e v e r. i have 0 braincell.)
this book is giving me a strong mid 90s to 2000s horror movie vibe. it’s giving buffy, it’s giving the craft, it’s giving circle of three, it’s giving the covenant and supernatural vibe and i.ate.that.shit.up! like all those shit but make it gay and southern gothic which coincidentally are two of my favorite things in the world.
however, i truly couldn’t care less about all the cars or racing part and I had a problem with how slow and repetitive the first 40% of the book was. the plot definitely picked up after the first half and got more & more interesting once all the angst and macho shit started to fade out so that’s great! i also thought that i’m probably gonna need more than this for the characters. i just think that they lack depth and could be better? and even though i wasn’t super attached with any of the characters, i still felt all warm and happy inside with how gentle sam was with andrew and how insistent he was on inviting andrew to things, i thought that was sweet!
overall it was an interesting and sometimes fun read! i enjoyed it! (except for all the cars talk! but that’s just me, im the gay who can’t drive so if u talk to me about cars it’s an automatic snoozefest, sorreyyy)

the last stretch of the book felt a bit comical to me but other than that, this was interesting!

i don’t care for this shallow surface-level attempt at exploring grief. i never cared about her or her mother or their relationship so it was hard for me to care about whatever it is that was happening in this book. the cheating part felt like it was brushed under the table even though it was a pretty huge deal. idk, i just didn’t like reading this one..

i can’t stand any of the characters, i truly can’t. it was such a pain to read.

It took me about two weeks to finish reading Killing Commendatore and maybe if this wasn't a Murakami book I'd just say 'fuck it' and give it up after the first week. In a way I actually enjoyed taking my time reading this and be immersed in this world with these enigmatic characters. For me this is not the kind of book where I can just simply get in and get out of in the matter of days. It has that suspense and slow build which somehow felt better to prolong because I felt like I was being taken somewhere by the author, like he's telling me 'calm down, just listen because I'm about to tell you something' and that was definitely the case with most of his previous books that I've read and that's why I waited. However, with this one.. the wait didn't get anywhere. It was building up to something but that something never came. The ending felt somewhat incomplete and I can't help but feel disappointed. Where were we supposed to go? What were any of those things supposed to lead up to? I don't think we ever arrived to a satisfactory destination and I'm just confused as hell at this point because we spent such a big chunk of the book getting to know this mysterious Menshiki, Mariye, the Commendatore etc. and for the ending to not have anything to do with those characters is just... I mean I guess it was a choice?? We don't even get to see the unnamed protagonist's growth per se as a character or as an artist and it makes me think, 'then what the fuck is the point of this book?'
I also found that the older I get the more uncomfortable I am with how Murakami describes women and girls to the point that whenever I get to those parts of his books I'm always reminded of that one Tumblr post that shows an example of how male writers write about women and it's comically on point because they somehow can always manage to reduce women's personality and entire existence to one single thing only: boobs.
Overall I didn't hate this book up till the middle, then it got really repetitive and it led up to a disappointing ending hence why I rated it 2.5/5.