The way K, the male protagonist, conveyed his emotions in such simple yet meaningful words. Those were the times when this novel caught me. Knowing how much you love her/him while knowing full well that that love cannot be reciprocated, but still choosing to linger and support the other. The pain of being there – just there, for another. This conveys the suffering of an unrequited love (love s, that is). And this one? This book has all the connections I can muster. Books that convey these kinds of emotions tend to affect me more than the others and I love books that I feel very connected to.

Some would say that loving something with such intensity of negative emotions (hurt, pain, etc.) prove to be a little pessimistic/sadistic/sentimental or whatever, but I am a firm believer that it is when we experience these kinds of emotions that we bring out the rawness of our self – that part which let us feel more than ever. I am a lover of books that explore the details of a hurting heart, and specifically describe the pain the characters were suffering from. And since I’ve been an avid fan of gut-wrenching, butterfly-in-the-stomach-sending, and heart-throbbing books that put me in an emotional mess, naturally, I would be a fan of this one. Sputnik Sweetheart, to me, was a very emotional book. A love story combined with a detective story, Sputnik Sweetheart ultimately lingers in the mind as a profound meditation on human longing. When Sumire disappears from an island off the coast of Greece, “K” is solicited to join the search party and finds himself drawn back into her world and beset by ominous, haunting visions. But devotion to an untidy writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments-until she meets Miu, an older and much more sophisticated businesswoman.

Haruki Murakami, the internationally bestselling author of “Norwegian Wood” and “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” plunges us into an urbane Japan of jazz bars, coffee shops, Jack Kerouac, and the Beatles to tell this story of a tangled triangle of uniquely unrequited loves. A college student, identified only as “K,” falls in love with his classmate, Sumire.

My sputnik sweetheart book