>>24
>>21 here. I'll elaborate.
TWUBC was boring to your mom probably because of the extremely slow, slice-of-life intro that spans the first 300 or so pages. The story will progress almost like adetective story--one finding new clues until the climax at the very end. TWUBC replaces the tension found in such detective novels with mindless chatter, near-useless character development, and metaphysical garbage. I'll admit to liking the intro simply because I enjoy Murakami's SoL writing style, but when he tries to take a simple story and turn it 180 it does not turn out well.