This is my third Sayaka Murata book and I love how bizarre and unsettling her work is. I’m still deciding how I feel about this book, I have to sit with it a bit. 3.75 is where I’m sitting at with it!

“Normality is the creepiest madness there is. This was all insane, yet it was so right.”

Our main character is in search for her ‘normal’ constantly checking in with her instincts and desires surrounding the world of love, intimacy, romance, desire and connection. She is unique in this new world where she was born of love and sex instead of being a product of artificial insemination. People now only give birth through scientific methods and marry simply to have a co-parent and sex between couples is now taboo, but even that partnership is fading away as times go on. Romantic love now is mostly saved for fictional characters, if they even feel romance at all.

In an effort to test the best way to keep population efforts going, an experimental city is created where everyone gets inseminated no matter your gender, as male pregnancy efforts are underway. Every resident is Mother to all the nameless children who are simply called Komodo-Chan.

Our main character ends up there with her husband as she works out what is the best ‘normal’ for her.

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This book at its core is about the erasure of the nuclear family and all sexual and romantic relationships and feelings. In a way it felt like a story about most effectively cutting away intimate human connections to create the ideal population, one that will be emotionally unattached and mostly care about the collective in an almost creepy hive mind kind of way. This would also obviously make for better workers, people easier to control.

If you like a weird read, this is such a good one to get into. I think Convenience Store Woman is still my favourite book by her, but this is maybe second.

Thank you Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the early copy — I will probably buy a paperback as well!

PS. I will come back and add links to my social media reviews but below is my StoryGraph review link

Sadly my least favorite of Murata's works. Way too repetitious making it a struggle to get through. I'm used to the author's heavy-handed themes, but this was overkill for me.

"Normality is the creepiest madness there is..."

If you’re familiar with Sayaka Murata’s work, then you know she’s not afraid to go there! I’ve read and loved her previously translated works and was similarly riveted by Vanishing World, first published in 2015 with this English translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori due to be released in April of this year.

In Vanishing World, Murata dissects ideas around normality, culture, and modern loneliness, as well as the limits of humanity and what it is that binds human beings together. Sex and romantic love soon become relics of the past as artificial insemination as a means to conceive becomes de rigueur. Parasocial relationships abound, marriage and ideas around family are called into question now that copulation becomes unnecessary. In a utopian Chiba-turned-Experiment City commune, adults live collectively as Mothers to eerily uniform Kodomo-chans. Technological advances mean that it is now possible for men and women of various age groups to carry a Kodomo-chan into the world.

As her mother proudly shares, Amane was conceived the ‘primitive’ way via copulation that has now become taboo. From a young age, her mother has instilled in her that to love and be loved and raise a family are good things she should want for herself. She wonders if this has now cursed her to be a person vulnerable to love and desire. The book traces her path through life from a childhood in Chiba to a future in Experiment City.

As with her other works, Sayaka Murata examines evolving cultural norms and how lonely it can be to go against the grain. In a society that quickly adapts and conforms to prevailing social norms, it can be difficult to be the nail that sticks out. As things change and people assimilate into new ways of being, to stick out risks being either forcibly hammered or softly pressured into place. It can be hard to recognise authentic individual instincts, much less exercise genuine free will, what more resist change. It can be hard to even know who you are!

This examination of human nature and societal customs is something I really appreciate reading. Human ideals, needs, and wants aren’t static. Cultures are always changing, societies are always shifting, worlds as we know it are always vanishing. Even what it means to be human is subject to change. What seems to stick around and drive the instinctive pull towards conformity in her works is our human tendency towards connection and (collective) survival, to ‘sustain life’ as she puts it. Survival is a form of resistance. Conversely, it is unnerving how easy it can be to be swept up in the flow of change towards a new ‘normal’, whatever that looks like, the despair in resisting the force of its currents.
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Motherhood is another layer she delves into here, in interesting ways. I don’t disagree with the notion that all children are ours, and we are all mothers in some way, whether one conceives/is able to conceive or not. To witness this particular iteration is another matter! I do feel, as with similar scenarios in medicine, that technological advancements driven by a desire to conceive or sustain life might well be the driving force that spearheads humanity as we know it into new terrain.
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And there’s that generational aspect too. Perhaps our formative relationships is another driver, at least I couldn’t help thinking this as I read about the relationship Amane has with her mother! We go through life figuring out who we are, and a pivotal part of that journey is refracted through the (authoritarian) relationships we first have with our parental figures, not uncommonly a reflection of society at large at a given point in time. That which creates can also destroy, that which we create can also destroy us.

I love reading her work also because she fully commits to the internal logic of her stories, and while they can seem confronting to our own accepted social norms, they’re not necessarily purely for shock value either (at least imo!). She guides you through her stories in a fairly didactic way that it almost makes sense when the story heads in a direction so absurd as to be sickening, and therein lies the horror! To that end, that ending!!! I did not want to go there but neither could I look away! 😱
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Another compelling novel by an auto-buy author who’s not afraid to confront the stuff of us, the elusive borders between our animal and human selves. Parts of it was loosely in conversation with some recent reads (The Hypocrite, The Word for World Is Forest), and I appreciated being able to spend more time thinking about changing social mores across time. The world we know now is not the same as it was even a short time ago. Cultures are built on the backs of others. As tempting as it may be, we can’t truly judge choices born of a different norm and, for better or worse, we can’t un-know something once we’ve eaten from the fruit of knowledge! 🫠 Would love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read this ❤️‍🔥

Thank you @groveatlantic @netgalley for this copy, very grateful!

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata is a dystopian speculative fiction set in an alternate Japan, where sex between married couples is as taboo as incest, and all children are born through artificial insemination.

The novel centers around Amane, a woman who feels estranged from her parents’ traditional act of procreation. As she moves through her sexless marriage and into the experimental community of Paradise-Eden, where children and parents are stripped of individuality and raised communally, the book explores themes of sexuality, human intimacy, reproduction, and alienation in an age of technological advancement.

While I thought the concept was interesting and executed in Murata’s distinct bizarre, offbeat style, the book’s biggest downfall is its uneven pacing due to excessive repetition. However, I’m unsure how much of this can be attributed to the translation. Once the characters arrive at Paradise-Eden (which should’ve happened much sooner), the story picks up and escalates quickly into a jarring ending of psychological unraveling.

3.5 stars

Wow! What a weird little book. This was a quick read for me...I tore through it in about 24 hours.
I'm still kind of reeling from the ending and grappling with the overall meaning of the book. I enjoyed the commentary on developing crushes on fictional characters in media, which the main character refers to as people from the "other world."

"Unlike with real people, love with someone who inhabited a story never came to an end or disappeared."

As a child, with a wild, vivid, imagination, I could relate to this in so many ways. I know this is perhaps a problem in younger generations where some people become more attached to fictional or famous people than real people, but I found the commentary less damning and more acknowledgement of the legitimacy of these imaginary relationships, especially for those who feel they don't fit in with society.

There were a lot of weird, funny quotes, that had me laughing out loud:

"Love is about having the courage to be called a pervert."

"Amane, thank you for eating me."

"Hanging there was an odd thing that looked like a huge flattened testicle."

Some parts were really hard to read due to the graphic nature, but they were still gripping and entertaining. I think I'll have to read this again when it comes out to really understand what the book is trying to say. However, I love a story that makes you think and this book does just that! I'm excited to reading more Sayaka Murata in the future.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

"In Paradise-Eden everyone is the child of all humankind, and everyone the mother of all humankind. This recalls the love-filled world that existed before Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit."
In today's world, marriage is no longer necessary. The old way of creating babies is shunned at. Manu people choose to be in love with fictional characters.
Sayaka Murata has done it again, creating an "ideal" world that feels strange yet fascinating at the same time. Like Earthlings, the book has its own charm, but both books have an unsettling ending that I am not a fan of.
Still hoping another book like Convenience Store Woman will be written, for that's my preferred taste in book. Overall, it's not too bad.

Sayaka Murata’s Vanishing World offers an intriguing concept set in a world where sex doesn’t exist as we know it, and sexual relationships between married couples are taboo. Instead, people form relationships with other partners, real or fictional, for sexual purposes. The concept itself is fascinating, but the story feels a bit flat, with the lack of a strong plot making the book more of an exploration than a compelling narrative. The ending, however, is classic Murata. A “wtf” moment.

In this book, Murata explores themes like unhealthy obsessions with fictional characters, societal rejection of traditional relationships, and the decline in birth rates. These ideas are timely and thought-provoking, but the book doesn’t delve into them as deeply as I’d hoped. Instead, it often feels like Vanishing World is more about the world itself than the people living in it. The first half of the book drags, but the second half picks up significantly, providing the narrative drive that the beginning lacked.

Amane, the protagonist, is an interesting character but hard to connect with. She is the only person who engages in physical relationships yet I felt she does it without much interest, almost like it’s a chore. On the other hand, her respect and emotional attachment to the fictional characters she considers “lovers” is one of the book’s standout aspects. In this world, people talk about their fictional relationships with the same reverence they would real ones

While Vanishing World doesn’t match the brilliance of Earthlings or Convenience Store Woman, it’s still a worthwhile read for those who enjoy Murata’s unique perspective on society.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Sayaka Murata did it again!! This was soooo weird in the best way — so original and disturbing and hilarious.

While horrifying in the way that Murata writes best, Vanishing World asks a lot of interesting questions about how children should be raised, about polyamory, family structures, and the roles of sex and love in society.

Murata continues to be such a fresh voice. I'll read anything she writes.

Originally found this concept really intriguing. However I felt the story dragged on, and i’m not sure it was my cup of tea. I think ha’s some point ant moments that could be used for commentary on traditional gender roles and traditional perspectives of marriage and relationships but i’m not sure I loved it!

I WILL READ AAANYTHING SAYAKA MURATA WRITES!!! aaahhh thank you so much for giving me this galley 🥰🥰🥰

Thank you to the publishers for this ARC.

I unfortunately deeply disliked this and I've been trying to gather my thoughts because I don't wish to write an overly emotional review, but I'm struggling to find the appropriate words.
While I didn't think the book overall was very good, the ending is what truly bothered me immensely. I do not understand the reasoning behind it nor do I want to, frankly.
I thought the world building was essential to the story Murata wanted to tell and yet it felt so haphazardly sketched out. The themes that the book aimed to explore are so incredibly interesting, but it's all told in such surface level, repetitive (and a lot of times confusing) writing that it made for a really uninteresting and disengaging reading experience. I struggled to connect to anything told in this book.

The reason why I came off this so upset is not only because of the contents of the ending in itself, but because the simple fact that the story ultimately led there was so extremely disappointing. I personally felt like I had just entirely wasted my time and I strongly dislike when I feel a book does that.

While I had only read Convenience Store Woman which I did enjoy, this has deterred me immensely from reading any more of her work if I'm being honest.

I’ve read Murata before. Convenience Store Woman was an interesting read, while Earthlings was a weird, surreal book that knocked me off my feet but still managed to captivate me. So, I knew this new book would be no different. I was prepared—but was I really?

A bizarre read, undeniably strange.

The polar opposite of today’s social norms, this book presents a world where desires and sins take centre stage. It offers a somewhat distorted reflection of love, family, and sex—a dystopian world stripped of our ‘normal, ordinary’ values and social conventions. Futuristic surreal world.

The book feels more like an abstract concept than a structured plot; without this concept, there’s little substance. The writing is simplistic, with repetitive dialogue that seems to go in circles. It had the potential to explore fascinating questions—Can humans thrive in a society without families? Can a world without family truly function? What would happen if traditional gender roles were reversed and men could give birth? What if infidelity were no problem, polygamy were the norm, and marriage was more like a friendship or a contract, with no sex involved? What if sex were no longer an option at all, and babies were created without sexual intercourse? There are lots of interesting conversations to be had, but it failed to deliver.

Sadly, with every page, it went further downhill. The ending was horrendous—so bad I nearly developed an eye twitch. “Why, Murata? Just why?” It was shocking, uncomfortable, disgusting, and entirely unnecessary.

My least favourite of S. Murata’s works.

I really hovered on the rating for this one because I love many of the concepts explored, but the execution was not always interesting or entertaining for me personally.

Murata does a great job at throwing the reader into worlds (either setting wise or in the narrator's mind) that are so strange, yet the writing style quickly left me accepting things as "normal". I'd say the idea primarily explored here is whether the vision we have as family would remain if cis men were able to carry pregnancies to term. This includes whether we'd still hang on to the same desire for traditional family structure if such a concept were possible.

What I thought worked well:
- The transition from the MC holding onto what her mother taught her was "right" and slowly adjusting to the world in Paradise Eden.
- The story's emphasis that most of the carriers of the children are no longer important or valued once they go into labor and then all focus is solely on the children. Children are the most important reason for anything, apparently.
- The Madonna and the Whore complex is touched on a bit with the husband describing that he comes home to his wife who is like family, like a sister, and he feels clean interacting with her.
- The above adds to the concept of family existing solely as a means to guarantee care for children.
- Amane wondering if her husband had a womb, if he'd still be with her. I think this was the strongest discussion in the book.

What I think could've been stronger:
- A few concepts are repeated a bit too much and did make Amane's narrative a bit tedious at times.
- It takes quite a bit of the story before we actually see Paradise Eden, so I think this could've been trimmed just a bit.
- At times, this wasn't the most engaging story for me. and I think I lost interest most when we were dealing with Amane's husband's girlfriend troubles, which is a personal thing for me.

Overall, if you enjoy Murata's work, I think you'll get something out of this. I didn't enjoy it as much as "Convenience Store Woman", but it game me some concepts to think about.

Sayaka is an auto-buy author for me. I was lucky enough to receive an e-ARC from Grove Atlantic. I did not enjoy this as much as Earthlings and Convenient Store Woman, but there is no mistaking that Sayaka wrote this book. It’s definitely Sayaka coded. This book is split up into 3 parts (no chapters, or at least no chapters in the ARC version). The first part was engaging and had me devouring it quite fast. The second part was a slog, very repetitive. Like, I get the point, please proceed. The third part was where things picked up and got interesting again. The last couple pages threw me off kilter, of course Sayaka had to throw in something completely disturbing. Parts 1 & 3 get 4 stars, part 2 gets 2 stars… I’ll give this 3.5 stars. Love you Sayaka. I’ll read anything you write, no matter how insane it is.

Initially, my reaction to Vanishing World was one of discomfort—even disgust. The ending was UMbelievable and it made me hysterical. Murata’s unsettling vision of the future was difficult to process. However, as I reflected on the novel, I came to appreciate its brilliance.

In Vanishing World, Sayaka Murata explores profound themes that challenge societal norms and provoke deep reflection:

• Declining Birth Rates and Reproductive Ethics – The novel presents a society where natural procreation is obsolete, replaced by artificial insemination. This shift raises questions about the ethical implications of reproductive technologies and the consequences of declining birth rates.

• Social Isolation and Loneliness – Murata examines the pervasive loneliness in modern society. Despite living in a highly structured world, characters experience emotional detachment, highlighting the fragility of human connection.

• Unhealthy Parasocial Relationships – It explores how people form one-sided emotional bonds with media figures or fictional characters, emphasising the human need for connection and the risks of seeking fulfilment in virtual or imaginary realms.

• Challenging Taboos and Societal Norms – Murata critiques traditional notions of sex, gender, and family, portraying a society where natural reproduction is taboo and conventional relationships are stigmatised. This forces readers to question their own perceptions of normalcy.

• Conformity vs Individual Desires – The protagonist, Amane, struggles with her identity after discovering she was conceived through natural procreation—an act now considered deviant. Her journey explores the tension between personal autonomy and rigid societal expectations.

As Amane navigates relationships, both real and parasocial, and contemplates life in an experimental community where the traditional family unit has dissolved, Vanishing World critiques the rigidity of social norms and questions the true essence of human connection. Murata’s thought-provoking narrative forces readers to reflect on the fluidity of societal standards and the implications of deviating from established norms. Are you normal or are you mad?

The novel serves as a striking commentary on the evolving definitions of family, love, and identity in a world that continuously reshapes its moral and ethical boundaries.

This novel was published in Japan quite a while ago, but has been recently translated into English following the success of Murata's other fantastic novels. I didn't like this as much as Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman, but I did like it. The writing was very blunt, which could be disconcerting. But you were supposed to feel uncomfortable and you get used to it.
This is set in a strange near future. It imagines a post- sex world. People reproduce artificially, families and marriage are being phased out, and romantic relationships are with anime characters. By taking these ideas to an absurd extreme she provides a very interesting thought experiment. It raises ideas and makes you consider what is good and bad about and what we really need from sex, love, and our current societal structures. My one major issue was the ending, it wasn't just taboo/weird, it was very very wrong and I don't know what to do about it - it almost spoiled the entire book for me.

"Vanishing World" by Sayaka Murata is a thrilling exploration of a world where our sense of normalcy is completely redefined. However, the main character’s wavering opinions—with little development—made it frustrating to read. The experiment city, while intriguing, felt underdeveloped beyond its hauntingly similar children. The strange ending left me deeply unsatisfied, and the story often felt like it lacked direction, repeatedly overexplaining the plot. This had so much potential, and I think it could have been stronger if we experienced the world through different characters rather than just a mundane life in a high-tech city.

In another imaginatively strange story from Sayaka Murata, we visit an alternate future where marriage is transactional and all procreation happens artificially.

We are introduced to Amane, who is pulled between the conventional and unorthodox views at odds throughout the story. She herself was conceived “traditionally” (ie: by sex), which she initially finds repulsive and embarrassing in her modern sexless society. She begrudges her mother’s antiquated views, but also finds herself struggling to conform to the expectations of her contemporary culture. Murata creatively extrapolates consequences of real current issues, such as Japan’s declining birth rate and gender inequality, while also highlighting the changing cultural attitudes and phenomena of our modern times.

As Amane navigates marriage and romantic relationships (two vastly different affairs in the context of this story), she discovers her own opposition to the norms and influences of her society. While Murata provides an extremist example of Amane, her journey is reflective of a classic coming of age (and a shocking unraveling).

“Vanishing World” offers a unique and unsettling perspective on the consequences of conformity and the importance of being informed in a changing society, with all the bizarre elements that have distinguished Murata in the science fiction genre.

I think the mixed reviews for this book say it all. Reading is all about the interpretation of the reader and, whilst this one was not for me, it certainly had me in its grasp and I stuck it out to the end.

Whilst this is my first experience with Murata's writing, I would like to read more of her work before passing judgement on whether her style is for me.

I can see the appeal of the weird and wonderful portrayed in this book and, whilst not my favourite piece of translated literature, I will certainly be giving her other works a try!

Thank you to the author's, publisher & netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

I enjoyed the premise and the idea of the book however I think the execution was very boring and overall just nto a good fit. It also may have been a problem on my end but it was just one continuous blob, no chapters to separate it.