Tess

This book really disappointed me. All of the characters sound fascinating in theory, and I liked the parallel universes idea, but the writing was just really bad. Important points are reiterated over and over like the reader might not be paying attention, and plot points are over-explained (there is a part in book 3 where the POV characters are constantly missing each other and the narration is constantly telling you exactly when they passed each other by even though it's obvious - it made me feel like Murakami thinks his readers are idiots). 

All of the characters talk about taking control but just get pushed around by the narrative. Most of them hardly do anything at all.

The writing around underage girls is gross, especially a plot contrivance which allows a major character (who is a teacher!!) to have guilt-free sex with a teenage girl. All of the female characters are written very poorly and described by their breasts even when they are dead.

The romance that is basically the whole point of the book is ridiculous.

I liked this book a lot. It's an Asian-inspired dark fantasy, and managed to make the world feel big despite about ninety percent of the book taking place inside the palace grounds. The characters were great and showed a variety of ways that people react to trauma. Lei's impulsiveness sometimes annoyed me, but she's seventeen so it makes sense.

Heading into the ending I was expecting this to be five stars, but the actual ending feels rushed (I feel like almost as much happens in the last 20 pages as in the entire rest of the book) and one plot point, while not really surprising, disappointed me.

Overall though the book was great and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

This book was fine, but it didn't feel like it had a lot of depth. The essays felt a bit like blog posts and were a bit too “of course not all men” to me.

This book is hyped up so much everywhere and I didn't like it at all. The writing style is so over the top (every time the main character meets even a minor setback she's like “then he turned into a bear and shot me in the face”), the characters have one trait each, and the way the author can't seem to decide whether these characters' obscene wealth is embarrassing or aspirational and kind of tries to do both drove me nuts. (The dismissive comments in the afterward about Cady's “marxism” do suggest a few things though...)

I thought this was a thriller from the blurb but nothing happens and the twist is beyond stupid. (Also I have no idea how the character got out of the situation revealed in the twist without any injuries that would be noticeable months later even if she did have amnesia.) I don't think this book had any redeeming qualities.

Yes, this story about a down on his luck man who turns his life around after a chance meeting with a quirky old lady with a tragic backstory is kind of cheesy and predictable, but I really liked it. The author's outlook on life is what I needed to read right now.