4 stars for this uniquely bizarre, highly entertaining novel that I would like to compare to a gigantic enchilada in the sense that it's delicious even though I don't like certain ingredients (May-December Oedipal romances = refried beans) and pleasurable in its messiness. 
 (view spoiler)[ Didn't Kafka ever open the refrigerator and wonder why there were dead cat heads in there? Did his dad pick him up from school dressed like Johnnie Walker? (hide spoiler)] 
 I got hooked on a computer game called King's Quest IV when I was younger and, without going into detail, this book struck me so much like the magical experience of wandering around with my knight trying to figure out how to get into Lolotte's castle without getting carried off by those darn flying monkeys. I am 100% convinced that Murakami must have played a similar game at some point. 
 The other thing that I am sure of is that Donna Tartt used this as a stylistic inspiration for The Goldfinch. I critiqued that novel for its unnecessary, unhelpful detail, movie-like characters and disappointing anti-hero. Somehow these things did not bother me in the same way in Kafka On the Shore, perhaps because they are intrinsic to Murakami's style. I look forward to my next escape into Murakami's fiction - a place I fully endorse to the open-minded.