After Dark (edit title)

• Rated 5 stars

“I liked this book very much. It is set in Tokyo and describes the encounters of a handful of people during the hours between midnight and dawn. While we are asleep, the world on the outside moves in dreamlike and sometimes nightmarish ways. It is a bit like looking at an exhibition of surrealist paintings. Very cool!”

• Rated 3 stars

“This was an easy read. Before you know it the book is over. I did feel like there were characters whose story was never resolved which was a bit disappointing. Overall I liked the characters and their stories. I also enjoyed reading an author from another country who wrote a book taking place in another country. It was interesting to read the American references.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Wow.
I loved the description in this book. I love how everything happened in one night, it made it seem so epic and I love how each of the chapter names is a time; 3:25 AM, 4:04 AM things like that and I love how it switched back and forth stories between these people who are connected in a way but also not connected.
I read this in entirely one night because I couldn't sleep; started it at 1:30 AM and finished at almost 4 AM, and I think that because it took place After Dark, during the hours that I was reading it, I could really understand a lot more than I might have if I were reading it during the day.”

• Rated 1 stars

“Did not enjoy this. The story went nowhere.”

• Rated 4 stars

“as expected, nothing is resolved in the end. however, the prose is very pensive and pleasant, and contrary to what others have said, i find the delivery superb, hence i am very much impressed by the translation. i was really touched by the part when mari remembered a fragment of her past when her sister showed she actually cared for her, consequently opening up a possibility that she still does. in any case, murakami once again managed to mesmerize me.”

• Rated 3 stars

“This book had some of the best descriptive writing I've read. Murakami created painted such a picture of a night in Tokyo that felt so lifelike and familiar comingled with a completely foreign and weird metaphysical subplot that was strangely engaging.”

• Rated 2 stars

“I've read this book but I'd still be very grateful if someone could tell me what happened or what the book is about. You seem to read the book expecting things to be resolved but by the end, they remain unresolved. This is quite unsatisfying really. ”

• Rated 2 stars

“After the Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood and especially Kafka on the Shore, this was a bit of a disappointment, relatively speaking. In itself, the story was intriguing enough, but I failed to get carried away by the characters the way I had in the other books. It hasn´t stuck in my mind in the same way either. ”

• Rated 5 stars

“This book is about a girl name Mari who was out one night in the city of Toyko, I believe. The town changes at night and many types of people come out. They are mostly people of shady background when she first meets them but as she gets to know them, she seems their kindness. The story takes place throught the night that she sends in town. Along with her story, her sister's, Eri, story is also being told. The two sister live very different and their night was totally the opposite. Mari's was full of exploration and meeting new people but Eri's was spent sleeping and being stalked by this figure.

My favorite character in this story is a woman named Kaoru. She is a big woman who was once a professional wrestler. She is also the manager of a love hotel. She is the most interesting because upon hearing her descpition one would think that she a woman with very little moral and could careless about the suffering of others but she is actually the opposite. She cares deeply about how others feel and took a great care of a prositute whom was beaten. She was a woman that appeared to be enough outside but was actually careing in the inside.

I also love the setting of this book because it was during the night time when no one really knows what would happen to a girl alone in the city. I loved how she would meet all these people that everyone else would think of as shady because they are most lively in after dark. The city changes after dark and there is just so many things that we just don't know about. The book gave an interesting view on Japanese culture. ”