When I was 17, one of my best friends died. He was found in a practice room at his university. To read Norwegian Wood was to revisit myself at that funeral.

I bought this in a book store in Kentucky two years ago and finally started reading it. I finished the book in less than a week. I’m not usually one to underline text in a novel, but I happened to have a pencil on my coffee table while reading this and there are a few lines that stood out to me as exceptional prose. I look forward to rereading this in the future.

Many of the women in this story are well ideated but poorly written characters. I think it is particularly annoying that the narrator has sex with all but one named female character; even then I was worried that Toru would turn his moment of chivalry with Hatsumi into an excuse to bed her.