RaveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksIn contrast, Colorless Tsukuru is a relatively slim and quiet volume. Some might say that it recalls Murakami’s earlier forays into realist fiction, although it’s not quite that either. The book showcases Murakami’s later talents as both a deeply intuitive and effortlessly inventive writer ...begins Tsukuru’s pilgrimage, a physical and emotional journey that sends him into the past, and as far away as Finland, on a quest to find answers and secure the love of a woman ...this book is centered on a mystery and it should be said that readers who read for answers, who chew through pages to get to the hard nut why, may find this book frustrating ... Colorless Tsukuru serves as an access point, a station that transports readers and connects them with Murakami’s previous works.
Patrick Flanery
MixedThe Los Angeles Review of BooksWhat’s most terrifying about I Am No One is precisely the possibility that O’Keefe hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s just an ordinary citizen who is suddenly made aware of the remarkable amount of scrutiny that we all endure over the course of our day-to-day lives ... Flanery relays all of the necessary information with tick-tock, masterful precision and yet the longer the mystery is drawn out the more frustrated I became. The action of the book, and its secret, becomes centered in the past, so we read only to discover what O’Keefe already knows. Flanery does such an excellent job of putting O’Keefe in danger and creating a tense and thrilling atmosphere that I wanted to spend less time investigating what had already happened and more time seeing what was going to happen next ... If the plot of the novel sometimes frustrates, Flanery compensates by creating a character who wins us over with his erudition and charm.
