Review: Mansfield Park, Austen | ★★★★☆

I actually loved the story and romance of this book, I found it so cute and adorable... Austen had even a cliche in there (the play re-enactment scene) which usually I'd roll my eyes at, but I ATE it up. My biggest gripe is just the incest... Listen, I know it was normal for the time but I cannot help the inherent disgust that comes with reading incestuous relationships, okay?

To make it even worse, he watched her grow up when she was 10 AND HE WAS 16. By the time he had realised his true feelings for her she was only 2 years older than his age when they would’ve first met. Look me in the eye and tell me that’s not weird at all, please try.

Review: Norwegian Wood, Murakami | ★★☆☆☆

Had to log into goodreads on my mac because dear lord is there a LOT I have to say about this book. I'll start with the positives because there is remarkably little good things to say about it.

Murakami's writing IS very good; it's addicting, and pretty much the only thing that got me through the book. I love his writing style.

In relation to this he does explore some things well, sometimes. For example, the experiences of the characters in a mental hospital, what they think of it, sounds very realistic from personal experience. In cases like this it was cool because it felt descriptive that it was almost like he was recounting his own experiences. I don't know anything about him so I don't know if he did, but either way that's a real talent so I have to give him that.

Alright, now to get into shitting on this book. - The characters are unbearable. You want to know who my favourite character is? Stormtrooper. A fella whos real name we don't even know, a fella who the only thing we know is basically that he's very into cleaning and doesn't like pictures of naked ladies on walls, who disappears halfway into the book with no real explanation. And yet, this guy's my favourite character. Why? Firstly because he seems to be the only guy in the book who doesn't see women as nothing more than living (or if you're Naoko, dead) sex toys. Second, somehow, I feel like he's the only one with a decently interesting personality. Naoko is a sad, ill girl who can but also cannot get horny. Reiko is an old jokester. Midori has a fun personality but inside you know she's in pain. These are characters that are not new by any means and are almost stereotypical. Now that I think of it, maybe the only reason I like Stormtrooper the most is because we know so very little about him so there's not a lot to dislike about him yet. - Call me a prude all you want but I stand by this. There is SO SO much unnecessary sex. And it's extremely, extremely uncomfortable to have to sit through. I guess this makes sense because Watanabe is a creepy misogynist who apparently doesn't have a semblance of self-restraint when it comes to sex. There are many pages of this book involving sex scenes that I was tempted to rip out and believe me, if I did it wouldn't have changed a thing about the story. Oh, and speaking of the story, - What on earth is the story?? What is the plot? It's a story within a story, but only one ends, and in an extremely ambiguous manner as well, do it doesn't really even 'end'. I don't think I could explain to anybody much about the plot throughout any point of the book. I think I just read a constant cycle of college life, sex, college life, sex, etc etc. - So much fluff. Similar to the sex scenes, there were a lot of unnecessary parts of the book and it reminded me of me trying to reach the word count in an English narrative/essay assignment. Seriously, I couldn't believe that some pages just didn't have an entire red cross put over it in the editing process.

I know there's probably more stuff I disliked that I'm missing but I'm tired so I'm not going to type it out. All in all this book was a tragedy because Murakami knows his stuff when it comes to writing, but in terms of content I cannot say the same. Also, I have recently read a book I disliked (Mansfield Park), but never did I think "I will never read Austen again". This on the other hand, makes things a bit hard for me, because if I'm honest Murakami's now scared the shit out of me and though prior to reading this there were more books of his I wanted to read, I'm not sure anymore. Because if there's one thing I don't want to do, it's to spend $20 on a 400+ page book filled with pretty words for a garbage story. Forgive me, but I'm poor, and I want to maintain my sanity. So yeah gn