WTF did I just read?! Why did I love it? I don’t know whether I’m more disturbed by the book or the fact that I enjoyed it. It’s five outrageous, shocking, weird, uncomfortable and controversial stars from me.

Let me just start stating this book is not for everyone #MarmiteBook (love it or hate it). The synopsis does not give away the wild journey you’re about to embark on. I can’t explain it without giving the plot away or sounding insane. If you’ve read Convenience Store Women then you’ve had a glimpse of Murata’s writing style and “theme” of human anomalies. Earthlings takes that to THE next level.

Earthlings is a radical view of “The Factory” aka society and the social norms we conform to. Beneath the craziness, Murata beautifully depicts the story of Natsuki, an outsider to chooses to live a life against the status quo. This book does comes with a lot of trigger warnings which I’m not going to disclose as they are plot spoilers and I think you should experience this book knowing as little as possible. (Story Graph now has content warnings)
Happy reading Earthlings 👽🖖🏾

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC eBook in return for an honest review.

So what happens to a child who never feels like a real part of society? One who who never hears a supportive word, who is regularly put down by close adults, who experiences sexual abuse? This is quite an interesting novel of 3 such children grown to adulthood and the bond they form to survive. The writing is deceptively simple but the message is quite complex. I didn’t feel a close bond with these characters but I will remember them.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Press for the ARC to read and review.

This book is outrageous! It is so odd to say at least. As I try to explain this book, I must sound insane. If you want to read something unique, this could be on your hook, but you need to be aware this story could cause a stormy stir.
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This book contains quite a few trigger warnings of abuse, pedophilia and other grotesque description. While I was reading this, at times my heart was deeply ached by the darkness of the story and some parts made me nauseous. I read crime books a lot, so I'm no stranger to the grotesqueness, but the way this book describes the scene hit a nerve for me more than others I've read. Hence, please be aware before you pick this one.
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The story is actually simple, following Nastuki's childhood to adulthood. We learn how she copes with a variety of abuse and becomes a woman with a phony marriage. She goes through a lot and pursues even more bizarre ways.
It was very interesting how Nastuki sees the world as a reproduction factory. This book describes so well the psychological trauma, furthermore, also captures the social pressure on adults in a bit of an exaggerated term. However, I didn't expect such an ending at all!!
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It's hard to talk about this without spoiling, so I'll stop here, but this book contains A Lot! When I finished this book, I was like "What the hell I've just read?". It's difficult to rate this book even though I was completely absorbed from the first page. It's grim and disturbing. I feel I'm not grasping this entirely, however, I don't have courage to reread for a while even though it's a short book...

I marked this book as 3.5-4 stars.

DNF @ 20%
(I give it 3 stars here because you can't submit the review without a rating; I will be leaving the star rating blank on other media sites)

I was very happy to be approved for this book, and I'm very sorry to be unable to finish it and give a proper review. When I requested it, I didn't know it would severely trigger me. I will not be able to comment about what triggered me because it's highly personal, but the book may be triggering to victims of abuse, so please read other people's reviews to learn more about the triggers before you pick this book up.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

This was an unexpectingly graphic book about child abuse. I had read her earlier book which was also odd but I didn't expect it from this book. The cutesy cover and description leave anyone reading it in for a rude awaking. I didn't find it offensive or upsetting but it was quite graphic and the later plot points of cannibalism and incest were also a bit unexpected from publicity materials.

TW: parental neglect and abuse, physical and psychological abuse, grooming, pedophilia, incest & cannibalism
(there might be more but I didn't finish. I added incest and cannibalism since it was mentioned in other reviews)

I thought Earthlings was going to be a great fit for me but as the story went on, I couldn't keep reading. The content did trigger me so I decided to not finish this.

Sayaka Murata is such an acclaimed author and her books have been enjoyed by many readers, I'm sad it wasn't for me but I hope other people can enjoy it more.

Published in Japan in 2018; published in translation by Grove Press on Press October 6, 2020

Like Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings explores the theme of personal freedom in a society that values conformity to social norms. Both novels address, in very different ways, the belief that Japanese women should have the right to choose the life they want to live, unconstrained by the conventional notion that women must marry and reproduce soon after reaching adulthood.

As a child, Natsuki convinces herself that she is a magician and that her doll is an alien from the planet Popinpobopia. Every year she attends a family gathering with her parents. One year, her cousin Yuu tells her that he is also an alien and is just waiting to return home. Natsuki falls in love with Yuu because he is the only person who understands her. They stage a mock wedding and Natsuki eventually convinces Yuu to have sex with her. Natsuki and Yuu are discovered, scolded, and kept apart until well after they reach adulthood.

Natsuki’s only other experience with sex involves a college student who teaches cram sessions. When Natsuki tells her mother that the student had touched her and tricked her into giving him oral gratification, Natsuki’s mother dismisses the report as the product of Natsuki’s imagination. It seems likely that, true or not, Natsuki’s mother doesn’t want discussion of the incident to bring shame upon the family. Without giving her actions much thought, Natsuki eventually puts an end to one problem and creates another.

As an adult, Natsuki is unenthused about the idea of dating and sex. Succumbing to social pressure, she joins an online dating site and finds a man named Tomoya who wants to marry but does not want intimacy. That suits Natsuki, but the parents of Natsuki and Tomoya are soon pressuring them to have children. Tomoya would like to leave it all behind and visit the place where Natsuki’s family used to gather, a place that seems magical as he listens to Natsuki describe it. When they make that trip, they meet Yuu and change their lives in unusual ways.

The theme of freedom is first expressed in Natsuki’s belief that her town is a factory for the production of human babies. She believes her womb is simply a factory component designed to couple with a different factory component. Yuu and Tomoya agree that “everyone believed in the Factory. Everyone was brainwashed by the Factory and did as they were told. They all used their reproductive organs for the Factory and did their jobs for the sake of the Factory.” Like the protagonist in Convenience Store Woman, Natsuki rejects society’s expectations about her duty to have sex and bear children. That simply isn’t the life she wants, but other options are lacking if she wants to live as an earthling.

The story becomes a bit loopy at the end, relying on dark humor to make its point about the dark side of human nature. The alternative lifestyle that Natsuki, Yuu and Tomoya eventually adopt takes on an absurdist quality. While I didn’t find the ending to be particularly satisfying, the entertaining story that precedes it makes a strong point about the difficulty that ordinary women in Japan encounter when they elevate freedom and individuality above the patriarchal society’s definition of a woman’s duty.

RECOMMENDED

I was just talking to my coworkers about this book on Sunday and they all looked at me like I'm crazy!! 😆😆 but my main reaction throughout the book was entirely the same reaction as theirs: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUDGE??!! It took me a long time to process this book. That ending threw me off guard!! I wasn't prepared for sure but it is also something that makes you realize how society can be dangerous and cruel. If Convenience Store Woman was weird, this one tops it off of its weirdness. Sayaka Murata really does have a unique way of blowing off your mind with her straight-forward writing and at the same time tapping into difficult topics such as how we as an individual can sometimes feel that we don't have a personal say about our own decisions to not live within the norms like not wanting to have children. Overall, reading this was definitely a unique experience. But be prepared there are a lot of trigger warnings in here.

EARTHLINGS is translated by Ginny Talley Takemori.

Thank you netgalley and groveatlantic for this ARC!

I am... not entirely sure what just happened here. I was reminded a bit of Only Ever Yours, but then all of a sudden things went REAL awry REAL fast. The last chapter or so really threw me for a loop. I will say that I didn't dislike this book, exactly. I was intrigued enough to keep going. And I'm all for weird, but this was just a little too out there for my taste. I was really uncomfortable and there were a few parts that almost made me give up. I won't try to explicitly dissuade anyone from reading this, since it's really not awful, but it just was not my thing at all, in the end.

This book is weird! Weird and immensely disturbing and yet eminently readable. Again, this book is weird and I’m not sure I’m quite weird enough for it. And I mean this in the sense that it takes a rational overall theme and then chooses to present it in the most “extra,” odd, disturbing way possible. In terms of overall theme and character, it is very similar to my first book by this author, Convenience Store Woman, looking and conformity and social outsiders, and acting a part to fit into a world you feel alien from. But that is where the similarities end! This book is part traumatic coming of age story, part twisted destiny fulfillment. If I can explain the degree of weirdness, it would be to say that this book does have incest and that is the least weird and disturbing part. And the strangest bit, is the thread of dark humor running through the entire weird soup that is this book.

The premise is that young Natsuki is going through a hard time growing up with an emotionally (and at times, physical) abusive family and a sexually-abusive teacher and she would end it all if not for her best friend and cousin, Yuu, who is in a similarly emotionally abusive situation. But Natsuki must eventually grow up and join the real life world of earthlings unless she can find a way to best rebel against the strictures of society and live her life as an other in this strange alien world of earth.

It’s a little hard to describe the oddness of this book. On the one hand it’s very simple and reads almost as YA fiction especially early in the book when we meet young Natsuki. But on the other hand, the things that happen in this book are so explicitly traumatic that this is not at all appropriate for younger readers- certainly not without adult support. This book has definite elements that intersect between surrealism, magical realism and fantasy, but it also feels very real and very present The protagonist, Natsuki, is a very sympathetic character but at the same time being an earthling, at the end, I was also repulsed by her even though I understood her and still found her to be sympathetic.

There are so many potential triggers in this book that the main thing to say is not to read this if you are at all triggerable. There is on-page explicit child physical and sexual abuse by people who should be trusted adults, gaslighting and shaming of young victims of abuse and incest, cannibalism, attempted suicide, toxic family relationships... really the list goes on.

I’m finding it hard to determine if I liked this book or not. I... didn’t dislike it but I think it was a little too odd and abstract for me, especially at the end where it got super weird. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t particularly like it either. It was okay-tending-towards-liking in the sense that I absolutely adored Convenience Store Woman, I borderline liked this and would read this author again. I recommend this only if you’re not susceptible to triggers AND you’re looking for something somewhat weird and surreal and yet readable and rooted in reality.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Grove Press through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved Convenience Store Woman so was excited for Earthlings. Let's just say I was not disappointed and it was nothing like I excpected it to be. Earthlings is about a girl named Natsuki and her cousin Yuu. Later on it involves her husband. It is one of the strangest books I've read in a long time but I would recommend in a second. Maybe it's not a book for the light of heart but it is truly a reading experience. I'd love to be in a book club with this book. It will shake you out of this crazy world we are living in and transport you to another world that at first seems understandable but then goes to another level. Don't want to spoil it by saying anything else. It will surely be on my top ten of 2020 list. Read this book!!!

A charming short, but magical read. When you don't feel like you belong anywhere, it's always good to know you have one thing in common with everyone else - you too are an Earthling.

Like Murata’s first book Convenience Store Woman we get another intriguing, and bizarre read that I loved as much as the first.

This is a very hard book to write a review, because this is a short read and I do not want to give any. From the very high level, this s about Natsuki and Yuu who are cousins, and also decide they love each other, when at the are the earliest they can really discover love. They also believe that they are not from this world.

Murata tells wonderful rich stories, that only she can write. These characters are memorable and lovely and a story that will stay with me for a very long time.

At first glance these books do not appear to in my wheelhouse, but I have not been disappointed. If you are on the fence, I recommend give this short book a try, I think you may be be surprised.

Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Natsuki Sasamoto and her beloved cousin Yuu create an alien creation myth for themselves based on planet Popinpobopia; this coping mechanism helps them survive their respective dysfunctional and isolated childhoods. Both children idealize their grandparents' distant home in Akishina, but the summer of her 9th year when Natsuki urges Yuu to marry her, they are discovered in flagrante, and brutally separated. I loved every sweet detail of the child's perspective of the summer Obon festival of the dead. Author Sayaka Murata is masterful in her taking on taboo topics in her writing, the main one here is incest, but I didn't feel she had as complete command of the subject in Earthlings as she did over autism in Convenience Store Woman. Her deadpan outsider humor is evident, and any levity is appreciated given the abject cruelty her characters face. I had not known that eating bugs was a thing in Japan. I also didn't know that people were buried there (I thought only cremated).

*This book is phenomenal! I highly recommend reading this with as little information about it as possible.*

Sayaka Murata's second novel to be translated into English, "Earthlings" shares similar ideas to the ones in her previous hit novel "Convenience Store Woman" ~ What is it that motivates people to want to neatly fit into the roles society has predestined for them? And what happens to those people that simply lack that motivation?

Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, "Earthlings" follows Natsuki from her childhood up to her mid thirties. Since she was a child Natuski doesn't quite fit into society's premade mold, and because of that feels alienated from her family and the rest of the world. The only solace she has is the summer time she spends with her cousin Yuu, who shares her feelings of alienation from the rest of the world. This alienation she feels mixed with the abuse she experiences at the hands of the adults supposed to protect her drive Natsuki to strongly believe she and her cousin Yuu are from a different planet and are not actually human.

"Earthlings" is a sharp critique of society, its values and unwritten rules, and its treatment of people who chose not to adhere to those values and rules. There is nothing taboo in this book, and, while it may not be for everyone, I fell in love with it. It doesn't shy from anything, it makes the reader uncomfortable, but it definitely has something worth saying. I cannot wait to read whatever else is translated into English written by Sayaka Murata, but in the meanwhile I will still think about "Earthlings" for a while and then do myself a favor and read it again.

Thank you to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic Press for the opportunity to read a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I adored Murata’s quirky, philosophical Convenience Store Woman and as soon as I’d got wind that her latest release was on NetGalley, I requested it and was came face-to-face with this delightful cover.

Natsuki is different from the other kids. You see, she isn’t actually from Earth. She has magical powers and comes from a distant planet called Popinpobopia. Her favourite person in the world is her cousin Yuu, who also happens to be a Popinpobopian but she only sees him once a year every summer in the mountains of Nagano. However, a series of unsettling events threatens to part them forever. Decades later, Natsuki is married to an asexual man and battling the relentless questions about pregnancy from everyone she knows. Then she finds herself returning to the house of her fondest childhood memories and reuniting with Yuu.

Piyyut is the book’s cover star -Natsuki’s toy hedgehog who entrusted her with magic. The first couple of chapters are from young Natsuki’s point of view, so of course, I assumed that her talk about her powers was simply a case of a bored, imaginative child having vivid daydreams. This was something that I became much less certain of, as the narrative continued.

She feels like a spare part within her own family and it’s not difficult to see why. Her family are mentally abusive and dangerously dismissive of Natsuki. My blood boiled so many times during these chapters and I was desperate for her to grow up and move far far away -which is naturally exactly what she wants too.

I have to warn you that it is full of highly disturbing scenes of child abuse, sex and incest. My blood boiled several times in the first few chapters and I came very close to throwing the book at the wall. However, Natsuki’s reaction to the appalling ordeals that she goes through are horrendously realistic for an innocent child. Although she doesn’t seem to be able to call it out as abuse specifically, she clearly knows that it’s very wrong because not only does she heartbreakingly feel that parts of her are ‘broken’ but she sets about seeking revenge.

There is a lot of very clever, accurate commentary on society and Natsuki’s ‘alien’ perspective on it enhances the bizarreness of certain values and attitudes that humans have always held. We must all be either reproducing or working extremely hard to contribute to society or actually if you’re a woman preferably doing both of these things somehow. It made me reflect on the limited options that we actually have in life to become what is typically ‘acceptable’.

As Natsuki’s life progresses, she realises that she is unlikely to ever fit in to either life path that Earth has laid out as acceptable for her as a woman. Her marriage is a ploy to appear as if she is fitting in but of course, when she and her husband Tomoya fail to have children, the cover starts to slip and the questions start pouring in. It is incredibly strange to me how society still gets so obsessed with the lives of women of a certain age who aren’t become mothers. Even in the 21st century, where we can do almost anything that we want to do with our lives, women are still expected to have children at some point and it’s seen as a crying shame and something to be pitied, if they don’t.

The ending takes a very dark, surreal turn and I got completely lost in the haze that was slowly descending over the final pages. I felt that I was being taken somewhere which is incredibly fitting with the events of the very last page. Natsuki finally found her own unique way of dealing with and somewhat accepting what happened to her all those years ago and although, I was horrified by what was actually happening, I was able to see the transcendental subtext behind the actions. I’ll warn you that murder and cannibalism is involved, so you have some idea of the level of horror to expect!

Earthlings is a ludicrously strange, visceral, heady read with plenty of truth, social commentary and sparks of dark humour. I think I’ve flagged every trigger warning I can in this review (and believe me, there are plenty of them!) so hopefully you have some idea of the level of horror to expect. It’s one of the strangest, most thought-provoking books I’ve read in a very long time but it was incredibly readable. Pick it up for a harrowing, unique read this spooky season!

What starts off as a coming of age tale of a socially awkward girl - Natsuki - whose constantly overbearing mother even dismisses Natsuki's pleas of her teacher sexually abusing her, Earthlings meanders into deeper and darker territories as the book progresses. One quickly realises Sayaka Murata's Earthlings is more than just growing up pangs of a little girl or her escapism in the form of her magical thinking (that she's an alien from another planet). It's a commentary on societal conformism, tortured adolescence and yet another least explored Japanese phenomenon of hikikomori - individuals who desire to live in extreme isolation (off the grid). Natsuki calls the society 'Factory' that trains people to produce babies and live according to a set of norms. She firmly believes her cousin Yuu is an alien like her - who eventually ends up joining hands with Natsuki and her husband, living in isolation without ties in the society. The book is filled with uncomfortable themes - murder, cannibalism, sibling rivalry politics etc - and told through Natsuki's eyes, it's bound to shock readers. One thinks one has read enough of bizarre Japanese phenomenon in the telling of English language pop culture (articles, books etc) but writers like Sayaka trump that notion again and again. Brilliant and unsettling piece of fiction.

I must confess I was hesitant and wasn't very impressed for the first thirty pages of this book. Having read the author's earlier work I was bracing myself for the style that I wasn't a fan of but the content that would be most definitely fascinating. In <b>Earthling</b>, Murata delivers on both accounts. What starts out as a story about a little girl sexually abused by her school teacher and verbally, physically abused by her parents, becomes something more, grander and greater in span of fifty or so pages.
Providing an unflattering commentary on societal expectations from both men and women, the ideals of persistence in regards to happiness has the main character depersonalize. Psychologically splintered and physically alienated, she finds comfort in a man who is equally concerned with constant badgering of normalcy from his family while unable to explain his asexuality to others. This couple is then joined by her cousin who is equally lost in this "factory" that is the world.
Murata continuously refers to the society as "factory", the way once "rat race" was colloquially used. However the characters in <b>Earthlings</b> take it literally and go as far as to remove themselves from being "brainwashed" by the factory and live outside of its influence. What follows once this realization comes to pass is where Murata's writing shine. Its brilliant, its heart breaking and weirdly funny. There are many oddities in main character's behaviour that is of a troubled mind but with the history she has had with abuse and the reactions she has received when she has talked about it in open, its hardly surprising when she willingly withdraws from the society and considers herself as an "alien", unable to understand, adjust or even communicate with Earthlings. Its somewhere at the midpoint in the book where it becomes evident how the ending is going to be.
Yet, one won't see it coming.

Thank you to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

What did I just read?

I was interested in this one because I'd enjoyed Convenience Store Woman, and the beginning of Earthlings has the same feelings of alienation. But this story quickly gets darker, as the protagonist's alienation comes from childhood abuse and neglect, and she turns away from normal earthling roles. The "alien" view of society as a baby factory was darkly accurate and relatable, but the sexual and violent actions... not so much.

I found the end of Convenience Store Woman ultimately hopeful and uplifting. I was so happy when she recognized her joy in being the convenience store woman, and pursued that. But Earthlings goes to much darker places, as the Popinbopians try to break pretty much every possible taboo, and it felt more like when an HBO show just goes to porn to be shocking,

Final summaryt: What did I just read?

First of all, thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me access to this title!

I am struggling to put to words how I feel about this book. It took such crazy and fucked up turns that I completely didn’t see coming, especially at the end. I’m typically all for weird and messed up but I just wasn’t expecting it.

I liked the story itself and I felt completely protective of Natsuki. I hate how she was treated by her mother and I hate the horrible abuse she suffered. Also as much as the end weirded me out I like that she “took control” of her life in her own way.

I get the message the author was trying to convey about the patriarchal society and not wanting to be a cog in that never ending wheel.

This is a book I know I will have to read again now that I know what to expect, perhaps I would come away feeling differently.