#Saturday_ShortStory - 2 {Birthday Girl}

 HEY GUYS !!!

Today I'm going to recommend a book which was my shortest read in the year 2019 and even after reading it twice I've never really understood this book. This is Birthday Girl.

SPOILER ALERT - READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

Name: Birthday Girl
Author: Haruki Murakami
Genre: Magical-Realism, Contemporary-Fiction
Published in: 2019 by Harvill Secker

"Of course I'd like to be prettier or smarter or rich. But I really can't imagine what would happen to me if any of those things came true. They might be more than I could handle. I still don't know what life is all about. I don't know how it works."

Do you remember your 20th birthday? How you celebrated that and what you wished to have. Did that wish come true at that time or anytime afterwards? I'm asking you these questions because today's short story will remind you of your twentieth birthday.

The story starts from the evening of a young girl's twentieth birthday. She works in an Italian restaurant in Tokyo. So this means she's working on her birthday and that too on her twentieth birthday {not a good thing at all} and has not received any birthday wishes. 

The reason why I'm exaggerating this "twentieth birthday" thing is that I didn't know that one's twentieth birthday is such a big deal until I read this book. You want to find out why that is. Here's a link to a website that gives you 15 reasons why it is so.

OK. Now coming back to our story. There is a momentous event going to happen to her, which is going to change her life {as if this was required to be said after writing a word like MOMENTOUS}. So, this event kickoff when she's asked to deliver dinner to the restaurant's owner. The owner has always been an enigmatic personality for the staff of the restaurant. He never used to show up in his restaurant {what can be more weirder}.

When she encounters this strange owner, coming across to know that it's her twentieth birthday, he asks her to wish for something saying that he can grant her one and only one. The whole story is based on this wish. Now if you'd ask me what was that wish, well, I think it's too much to ask for.

But what I can tell is that if you have read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, you might have a little experience of what happens when the ending of a story leaves you with so many questions, that you're left with no choice but to read it again and again for the sake of understanding it better.

The whole experience of reading this book is what makes it special. The characters are simple, very real. It's about what happens when these characters encounter such curious incidents and have important decisions to make which can influence their whole life.

Often with Murakami's books, the minute details given about every single thing confuses you. It may have more attributes than you possibly could have thought. It's so short that before we can understand the meaning of everything that's said, it's over and we are left with our thoughts. 

You jump to different ideas every time you read it. It never gets boring. Every time you may find one or more new elements that need to be attended and understood.

This was my first Murakami read {and certainly not my last} and I still don't know whether I appreciate him on how nicely he has been successful in creating suspense or in making up a story that leaves you strangely satisfied. I don't know whether I understood it or not but one thing is certain that I loved it.

Oh, Gosh *Sigh* it's so difficult to write about such books. You can feel about these books only after reading it. Even if I tell you the whole story {which I pretty much have already done} you'll love this when you read it.