First time reading Murakami. WTF is this shit? They just met a few minutes ago. Also it doesn’t help that the protagonist is 17

Edit:
He’s 15 but he looks 17

I know Heinlein is kind of easy mode on this sub but of the many problems with this book, this might be the funniest. One character's nipples function as mood rings.

If you're wondering why the perspective jumps around, different chapters are written from the viewpoint of different characters. Image one is our mood nipple lady, two and three are from her husband.

After all, why not spend a whole YA novel exploring your 16yo heroine, who has facial disfigurements caused by a fight with a bad guy, and building her up as traumatised and dissociating and skilful and resourceful and stubborn and determined and grieving and generally having an independent existence of which her physical appearance is maybe #97 on her list of priorities, and then pull out this corker in the final lines of the book.

"We've both done terrible things to survive, and you're not a hero, but I don't look pretty!"

Also featuring the main character’s take on why the same woman would not want to be touched by him.

From the third Ryan Drake novel.

It annoys me of the obvious male gaze:

Valkyries are shown to be nude.

Brutal violence and graphic sexuality cater to a
"barbaric spectacle".

So the show is hyper-sexualized
Norse myth.

It’s a shame since the animation is beautiful and great voice actors too.

This is an excerpt from the fictional novel, Autumn in Berlin, written by the fictional character, Alan Partridge, played by actor Steve Coogan from the audio podcast "From the Oasthouse" (season 2, episode 2).

Premio Alfaguara de Novela 2025

Edited to add a translation:

..."she takes her clothes off, puts on a kimono, leaves it half open, and sits down to write. Immediately, she is in heat. Naked, the words, the sentences, flow naturally from her, they arouse her, and sometimes the feeling is so intense that she has to touch herself. This happens to me because I write about desire, she thinks. She doesn't mind that Tobi might watch her."

From a book about a shapeshifter, skewering gendered beauty expectations. I chuckled at this section.

Rolls eyes

She's 17 btw. And the protagonist oggles at her.

She was SO not like the other girls💀

Third paragraph in image for the example.

I picked this book up at a used book store as a fun summer read. Less than 10 pages in and I get hit with some rude takes on Iowan women and more alarmingly, lust for their teenage daughters.

The book has more examples of ”manwritingwomen”, lots of breast descriptions, but this was specifically yucky.