Book Review: Norwegian Wood

(Bought at Barnes and Noble with a gift card): I think I have to be in the right mood to read a Haruki Murakami novel. This one was different from the others I've read. There are no mystical elements such as talking monkeys or fish falling from the sky or giant frogs saving Tokyo. It's basically a love story of a young student in the 1960s caught between two women, one has mental health issues and the other is quirky, free-spirited and independent. He loves both of them and can't decide which to settle on. This was the novel that established Murakami as a top author in Japan. I prefer his more esoteric works like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles or Kafka on the Shore. They give you more to think about and to try and figure out. This was a perfectly charming book but it didn't strike me as compelling. I liked the portrait of Reiko, the older woman who is the roommate and fellow mental patient with Naoko, the girl with psychological problems.