Ryu Murakami's Sixty-Nine is one of my favorite books ever, so when I found out about In the Miso Soup I had to jump all over it. If you are looking for a book in the vein of Sixty-Nine, however, you're not going to find it here. The only similar thread is that of the influence of Americans in Japan, a topic of long and careful (and genuinely satisfying!) conversation between Kenji and his extremely creepy client. If you like chills, In the Miso Soup has them in spades. The ending is almost anti-climatic compared the the events that lead up to it, but Murakami makes you care for Kenji in a way that many authors don't. This is a quality book.