The year is 1984. The place is Japan.
Tengo is a math teacher and a writer who lives a very quiet life. He finds himself struggling though, to get his ideas onto the page. When he is contacted by an editor friend to “fix up” a book written by a seventeen year old girl. When he gets his working copy of the book, he finds himself diving head first into the rewrite, completely engrossed in the story and the world that the girl has created. Soon though, Tengo notices certain changes in the world around him, and he discovers that maybe the young girl’s book isn’t fiction after all.
Aomame is a hired assassin for a secret organization. On the way to a meeting, she begins to notice strange things, and finds that she has been transported to another world. This new world is very similar in many ways to the world she’s familiar with, but it’s also very different. She calls this place 1Q84.
Tengo and Aomame went to elementary school together for a while, and had one encounter that was very memorable for both of them. Now, twenty years later, in this new world, Tengo and Aomame find themselves thinking about one another, and yearning to find each other. Little do they know that in 1Q84, their fates are tied together in ways that they don’t completely understand.
At 925 pages, 1Q84 is a big book, in more ways than one. It took me a month to read, which is a lot for me, since I can usually knock out a book in a couple of days. I almost gave up a couple of times, but I couldn’t. I had to know what happened! The book, while a little repetitive in spots, is so well written, there were times I just had to stop and reread a section or a phrase. Mirukami’s writing style is simple, elegant, and very observant to the details of everyday life, sometimes to the most minute detail. I’m still not sure I “get” what the alternative reality was about, but that’s OK, because this is one of those books that I won’t mind re-reading, probably again and again.
Cookie's Books 