natashak1's Reviews (265)

A solid murder mystery with an unconventional narrator - the author himself. Definitely an interesting twist on the genre and quite refreshing, hopefully the sequel is as strong, but I don't doubt that I'll enjoy it.

Rarely does a murder mystery do something new, but, if not for the interesting pacing, this book would completely shed itself of the dubious honour of being known as a whodunit. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Horowitz's writing here, as I'm so fond of his teen lit, but it worked really well and even without reading the previous book in the series I found myself very invested in the main character, flaws and all.

Definitely a book that explores it's themes well, but perhaps a little lacklustre in style from time to time. The pacing feels a little odd in places too, although it also adds to the story in a way, so I won't complain too much. I think the main issue was the translation for me, particularly because I liked a lot of the imagery and how the author deals with talking about grief and aging, but the way certain sentences or paragraphs are put together can feel clunky, and I think it must be down to the translation from Korean to English.
Definitely worth a read, and it's such an easy book to get through, but be warned that there are some flaws that you need to embrace to enjoy it properly.

Perhaps not quite another The Secret History, but not too far off. I love a long winded detailed description of not a huge amount happening, but I can see why the first half of this book might leave people a bit frustrated with how slow it is in places. I, however, loved it. Not re-readable, but absolutely worth the praise it's been given over the last few years.

I know I say how much I love Murakami on a regular basis, but whenever I read a new one of his novels the realisation of how much I adore his work feels completely new. 
It's been a while since I read the other books in this series, but as soon as I started this all the relevant bits came back. This was, by far, the best of the four. 
I can't really order my brain right after I finished it, but I think the main thing is that it is a perfect amalgamation of all the Murakami-ness that appeals to me so much.

While the plot itself is solid and does work, there are quite a few flaws that I found difficult to get past with this one. The writing isn't brilliant, and a reliance on "our lives changed forever" as a chapter ending was a little annoying. There was also a strange pacing of chapters, in a way that made it feel like it was serialised unnecessarily. 
It was entertaining in the sense that you wanted answers, but thanks to easy-to-hate characters and plot points that were clumsily revealed I doubt I'll be reading much more by Walter.