i'm gonna be honest. It was a short story collection and it was my first murakami book but I can already see the repetitiveness in his storytelling and his lazy creative choices. I even disregarded the lack of connection he has with the female gender (the female characters were so cartoon like in his descriptions) and just focused on the story and writing. That's saying a lot about this author from someone who A) hasn't read fiction books in a long time and B) hasn't read any other books by him. I started losing interest around the 4th story and then just forced myself to finish it.