“If a girl disappears, you might not get any closure”

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is, by any chance, a bad book. My low rating can be easily explained by the fact that I've already read too much Murakami.

This book follows the typical Murakami pattern:
A simple guy who likes to 1. cook 2. listen to music/read books 3. think about the meaning of life meets an ordinary girl who turns out to be totally extraordinary, which gets her into trouble soon after the guy falls for her. The guy tries to save her from something, predictably dark but fails. The ending is usually bleak and confusing.
Sputnik Sweetheart wasn’t bad, but it was a bit boring. Nothing really stood out as interesting.

This book is a good representation of queer, age gap relationships; a seeming author who keeps on writing; a narrator as real as one can get. It's about life in general and the longing for the possible love which would never be returned.

I have come to realize that reading a Murakami book is not quite an act of reading itself but an act of dreaming with your eyes open. What you see is a series of surreal images barely held together by threads of reason. What matters, however, is the feeling these images leave you with.

Sputnik Sweetheart is not the best I've read from Haruki Murakami, but it was certainly worthwhile and a book I hope to revisit in a few years.