After being baffled by quite how much I enjoyed Convienience Store Woman last year, I thought I'd give Murata's latest offering a bash.

What can I say - I was not prepared for that. Seriously. I'm pretty much lost for words, other than to say that it was absolutely bonkers. It was dark, creepy and utterly bizarre and I couldn't put it down?

I couldn't tell you what I actually liked about it, it was certainly bingeable, but not something I'd ever reread. And I really don't know if id recommend it.

Also, there should have been a trigger warning for child sexual abuse, im really surprised that there wasn't.

2☆

This is a weird book. Most of it is accessible weird but then towards the end it went off the rails.

Natsuki fighting against the conformity of Japanese society is very interesting but how her fights ends up felt like I was reading about someone going insane.

This copy was provided by Netgalley for an honest review.

Earthlings: A Novel by Sayaka Murata is Brilliant. Disturbing. Unforgettable.

Natsuki the main character initially offers the reader a voice of innocence, and then she imbues a layer of darkness and shadow, as she explains to you that ‘she is from another planet and wants to allow her family to exist without her.’

It’s easy to relate to the unfairness and sadness a life held at arm’s length can do to a child’s mind, especially when they create a fictional world based off of the premise that they are alien, and in order to survive they must give up happiness and hope to become an Earthling and a ‘Factory Component.’

When abuse of a much different kind arrives, Natsuki drifts further away from her body to survive sexual assault and to compartmentalize.

Yuu, Natsuki’s cousin is also a dreamer and loner, open to the idea that he could also be from the same cosmic origins as Natsuki. They are sweet and quite wonderful until something private happens between them and they become pariahs.

It would explain so much if we all could say we are alien when our family doesn’t attempt to understand, protect or to know us. I was drawn to the logical ideal, as human needs, love and feelings were eschewed and became non-essential for the future.

The childhood moments spent in the mountains were a beautiful memory, perhaps to illuminate that there are two sides to all things? Duality even in the cruelest of situations?

What strikes me about this novel is the soft lull, then the sharpness below the text with deep exploration of social structure that never changes or learns from the past, the patriarchy, as in a woman’s dismal fate to be groomed to perfection only to procreate and appease the needs of others. Humans who are like zombies spending every moment of their waking lives only to serve the machine and to repeat the cycle again, and again like the silkworms.

This story does not force you to accept any of these ideas or to agree with them. Instead these opinions and rebellious feelings drift and flow in a way that they seep into your pores and into your dreams.

The ending was startling, violent and graphic.

If the novel had been written any differently, I may have perceived this end as a commercialized plot twist meant to wake me up and to feel a deep seated dread or to shock me to my core.

Truly it did both, but what I was left with was a pensive assurance that this author sees beyond societal masks and far beyond the obvious––in a world packed full of factory components.

I have already recommended this brilliant novel to a few of my friends.

Many thanks to Grove Press, Netgalley and the author Ms. Murata for an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 15%

No way I can get through this - the writing is so simplistic it should be aimed at middle grade and I can feel my brain cells dying with every word.

Didn't enjoy Convenience Store Woman and did not enjoy this - at least I tried to give this author the benefit of the doubt.

Convenience Store Woman was a brilliant look into the everyday nuances of humanity on the fringe of “acceptable” society, so I had high hopes for Earthlings. The main character is almost immediately immersed to the point of drowning in various types of abuse but comes across as being almost completely emotionally detached. She bounces from home to school to family gatherings where she is consistently used as an outlet by the adults in her life. In what comes across at first as a normal childhood fantasy, she begins expressing her belief that she is an alien. However, this unusual belief persists into adulthood.
Natsuki’s semblance of a “normal” life is nothing more than a façade. Now married to a man who has similarly odd beliefs, she is intent on finding her spaceship. The two have no qualms about arguing for the validity of their lifestyle with others who question it, including their own families. Once Natsuki and her husband travel to visit a cousin she hasn’t seen in years, the story becomes darker practically from page to page. For such a short novel, this one has packed in a large amount of disturbing subject matter.
I struggled to read this one, perhaps because I did find many of the themes overwhelming. After wholeheartedly loving CSW, I was expecting to feel similarly about this one. The first half of the book had the same off the cuff and sparing yet resounding tone, but when it bombarded the reader with one travesty against Natsuki to another with nothing in between as a buffer, I struggled to finish.
This book is truly one of a kind, but the subject matter was not for me. Recognizing it still has literary merit, I’m giving it 2.5 stars.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a complimentary copy. This did not impact my review.

Earthlings is a strange book in many ways and very different in tone to the author's popular book Convenience Store Woman. I had an odd experience reading it, finding it almost unbearable to read in the first half, especially during scenes of child sexual abuse, but then becoming strangely captivated by it in the second half, when things take a very bizarre turn. It's a heard book to talk about without spoiling it and it comes with about every content warning you could imagine, but I was thinking about it for weeks afterwards so would recommend to fans of the dark and strange.

Earthlings. Where to start with this book? Tonally, it is all over the place. At times it reads with such naivete and simple language, it could be a children’s book. But then it turns dark. Very dark.

There are (warning!) explicit scenes of child sexual abuse described in first person from the child’s POV. There are eruptions of surreal violence and gore. Things get... weird.

In its calmer, more realist moments, this novel actually does share a lot in common with Murata’s Convenience Store Woman, as protagonist Natsuki has no interest in career or parenthood, and enters into a phony marriage just to get people off her back:

‘Society was a system for falling in love. People who couldn’t fall in love had to fake it. What came first: the system or love? All I knew was that love was a mechanism designed to make Earthlings breed.’

I’m tempted to call Earthlings an ‘anti-coming-of-age’ novel. We meet Natsuki at age 11 and then again at age 34, skipping over those years we typically deem most formative. But the missing twenty-odd years seem not to have changed Natsuki at all—she remains frozen in time, perhaps as a result of the abuse and cruelty she suffered as a child—nor have they shaken her belief in planet Popinpobopia and the fantasy she takes refuge in: being a literal alien.

Natsuki and her husband both feel alienated; chafing against social strictures, they would rather believe they are Popinpobopians than become capitalistic and reproductive ‘tools’ for ‘The Factory’. This sends them down a bizarre path of nonconformism and taboo-breaking. Thematically then, Earthlings is a distant cousin of other tales of disaffected, transgressive anarchism like Fight Club.

It is hard to know how to rate this book, as I was transfixed while not really enjoying it. Murata raises weighty issues, gestures towards meaningful discourse, before veering away into surreal horror & gore. The climactic frenzy of ingurgitation is a metaphor-made-literal that readers are left to interpret for themselves. But I wasn’t invested enough to try. Maybe life on Earth is too weird right now for these aliens to land. 2.5 stars.

If you've read and loved Convenience Store Woman, this book has the same skilled writing--simple yet engaging. It also has the same themes like alienation from society, challenging conformity, and individualism. However, this is maybe 10x more intense and visceral. Imagine Junji Ito wildness levels. ⁣⁣
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Earthlings is about Natsuki, a woman who is just trying to survive life on a daily basis. She believes herself to be a magician, or an alien, but definitely not a normal human being. She sees society as a sort of Baby Factory, and that her life and body is somehow not her own. ⁣⁣
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The novel lets us witness part of Natsuki's difficult childhood, and her well-built adult life. The threat of The Factory to her peaceful lifestyle pushes Natsuki to escape into the mountains of her childhood, and there she will hopefully rediscover and reclaim her lost self. ⁣⁣
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As usual, Sayaka Murata has given us a thought provoking piece that challenges and questions our concept of society and normality. I am still sorting out my thoughts, final review coming soon on my blog! 🐌 Though I highly recommend this book, please take note of the trigger warnings // Distressing elements include child abuse, rape, incest, graphic violence, cannibalism // ⁣⁣
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Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Following on from Convenience Store Woman, this novel is another masterful exploration of outsiders who do not fit into a conformist society, but this time Murata draws on both magical realism and horror in order to tell Natsuki's story. Earthlings does not shy away from some very extreme subject matter and how victims of abuse often have their experiences dismissed by others in order to maintain the status quo. In some ways, this story reminded me of how Junji Ito uses horror to express a contempt for societal repression. Thank you so much to the publisher for giving me access to this ARC, I'm really looking forward to some more of Sayaka Murata's work being translated into English!

This one of the strangest books I’ve ever read. It was enchanting, sad and just plain weird. I loved it and couldn’t put it down.

The author draws you right into the main character—Natsuki’s—inner world. I felt fiercely protective of this earnest and strange kid.

The book has an essence of sci-fi. I’m not a sci-fi reader so that flummoxed me a bit. However, the story and characters were so interesting I wanted to follow them wherever they went.

I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

*Thank you to NetGalley & Grove Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

Sayaka Murata is so phenomenal at writing from the perspective of an outsider. In her last translated novel (Convenience Store Woman) she writes about a lonely outsider who doesn't adhere to society's expectations. In this book, Earthlings, the author explores similar ideas, but through a character that felt stronger, deeper, more experienced (even if a lot of that experience is a result of a lifetime of abuse and childhood escapism).

Which brings me to the escapism. In the description of this novel, it's said that Natsuki believes herself to be alien. She speaks of her toy hedgehog as a fellow alien, sent to help her. She also has a cousin named Yuu who tells her that he's an alien too. She forms a deep bond with Yuu and the two believe they have fallen in love with each other because they are the same (if only they could find their spaceship to take them back to their planet!)

Except, this book has a Pans Labyrinth-ian quality, wherein which the main character is a child and due to the extreme abuse they're facing, they create a reality in their mind that helps them to survive (because if they are an alien and can escape to their real planet where they belonged, then there would be some hope of escape in their future).

This book deals with deep psychological trauma and what happens when childhood trauma isn't dealt with as a person enters adulthood (thus forming destructive coping skills and mental health disorders).

The ending, however, was absolutely bonkers and I just can't explain or rationalize it in my brain other than to say: wow and also what the hell?!

I was so completely invested in this book that I read it, in its entirety, in one night. I knew I liked this author after her last novel, but now I'm truly blown away by her work.

This book is off the hook.

If I try to explain what happens in the plot, I will sound insane. And it is. The plot is outrageous and over the top - the oppression, the abuse, and then the equally shocking response to it. It's wild, fearless, and what makes it even stranger is that it's told in this completely simple, straightforward, conversational tone. It draws you in, with the ease of a YA novel. You almost think, hey, this is about 11 year old kids. I'm not that interested. But don't be fooled... it's about to get about as dark and twisted as your worst nightmare.

So yeah, I would like to avoid sounding insane. But I'd also like to avoid spoiling the experience for you. It's best, I believe, if you read this knowing as little as possible going in. Go for the ride. It's one of the most freaky-deaky in the whole amusement park.

It's freaky because as crazy as the main characters' actions seem, I supported them. Why? Because living in "The Factory" - society - isn't easy. Don't you ever feel like an alien? I sure as hell do. Don't you ever feel like you'd rather die than conform to what is expected of you? Or if you do, doesn't it feel like a slow death?

"The Factory" is often propagated most by those closest to us. I lived this way, so you need to, too. This is what you do now, and this is what you do next, and there's no room for you if you don't. There's no room in the factory for individuality. For those healing from scars or trauma. For those who have a unique-to-them path.

Murata's characters make room. This story is told vastly outside the box. And I love it because of that.

Wow this is truly a unique read. Uncomfortable at times, and unsettling whilst being very entertaining. Do not judge a book by its cover, especially this one......because what you read is a complete shock and you won’t be able to put it down

It's been about a week since I finished reading this and I still can't put in to words how I feel about it. After reading The Convenience Store Woman which was pretty heartwarming, I was expecting more of the same and was caught completely off guard by this book. It follows the main character from the age of about 11 up to mid thirties and focuses heavily on her life trauma and how she copes with living in a world she feels that she doesn't belong in.

This book covers a lot of heavy topics so there are trigger warnings for pretty much everything so please be aware that this is not an easy read. I really enjoy the author's writing and found it hard to put this book down even though the subject matter was pretty dark, the story was totally gripping.

Overall I would say I really enjoyed this for what it was and I would recommend if you enjoy stories that arn't the norm and deal with heavy topics.

“The person who had given birth to me said I was a dead loss, so I decided it really must be true.”


A few days before reading Earthlings I read Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman and I really loved its humour and eccentric narrator. So, perhaps I approached Earthlings with the wrong expectations. Or maybe I was fooled by its cute cover (I mean, just look at that hedgehog!). Fact is, Earthlings is an altogether different beast to Murata's previous novel. I can say, without the shadow of a doubt, that Earthlings is the most bizarre novel (and I've read a fair amount of books).
If you thought Convenience Store Woman was weird, well, be prepared as Earthlings is on an altogether different level of weird. Narrated by Natsuki, a young girl who is made to feel like an outsider within her own family and is regularly subjected to verbal and physical abuse from her mother and her sensitive older sister. Natsuki seems resilient enough though and finds reassurance in the belief that Piyyut, a plush toy hedgehog, is an alien from the planet Popinpobopia. Natsuki is eager to help Piyyut on his quest, and reveals only his true identity to her cousin Yuu who in turn tells her that he's an extraterrestrial. Both of them live in difficult households and are made to feel like burdens. Their bond strengthens, so much so that they begin to call each other 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend', keeping their relationship a secret from the rest of the family. Sadly, the two are only able to meet up in the summer during their visits to their grandparents (who have a house in the mountains of Nagano).

“With my eyes closed, drifting in space, it felt as though the spaceship from Planet Popinpobopia really was close by. I was immersed in my love for Yuu and my magical powers. As long as I was here in this space, I was safe and nobody could destroy our happiness.”


Natsuki's school life takes a turn for the worst when an 'attractive' young teacher begins to make sexual advances which will escalate to abuse. These horrific encounters will plague Natsuki into adulthood, as she will find it impossible to form an intimate relationship with another man. Her memories of Nagano and Yuu do lighten her days. However, to keep her family at bay, she forces herself to obey the norms of society and marries...but her married life is far from conventional.
There are many explicit scenes in this books. Some of them were simply vile, and frankly gratuitous, while others were so outlandish as to be funny (in a fucked up sort of way). This novel has quite a few scenes that made me drop my kindle and wonder, out loud, "WTF did I just read?". Here are some examples (readers' discretion is advised): (view spoiler)

What started as a dark coming of age soon morphed into a nightmarish and feverish horror show.
The book delves into disturbing subjects in a surreal and occasionally abrupt sort of way. The horrible things that keep happening to Natsuki and her alienation (towards her family, society, reality) are mediated by her unnervingly enthusiastic tone. She's perfunctory when noting what her parents and sister feels towards her and criticism of society's fixation on reproduction have a spring to them:

“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.”


Similarly to Convenience Store Woman the narrative of Earthlings interrogates existing notions of normalcy as well as questioning what being a 'useful member of society' entails. While Convenience Store Woman was far from subtle, it allowed more room for interpretation, Earthlings, on the other hand, is far more obvious. Natsuki, and two other central characters, use the 'Factory' metaphor in most of their discussions concerning their society and lives. It was a bit on the nose for me.
The ending was baffling and made me wonder what the point of this novel was. Certain scenes were so ludicrous as to be amusing and Natsuki's narration certainly held my attention but even so I wonder whether those really graphic scenes served a purpose other than 'to shock' the readers (I don't think so). Murata's treatment of emotional and sexual abuse is also rather questionable.
My advice is this: be weary of Earthlings.

After the wonderful Convenience Store Woman from the same author/translator this was a relative disappointment, albeit still a very quick and addictive read.

In Convenience Store Woman, Keiko struggled to fit in to conventional life or to understand other people - here Natsuki literally believes she is an alien. When the novel opens, with her age 11 she tells us:

"I hadn’t told my family, but I was a magician, a real one with actual magical powers. I’d met Piyyut in the supermarket by the station when I was six and had just started elementary school. He was right on the edge of the soft toy display and looked as though he was about to be thrown out. I bought him with the money I’d received at New Year’s. Piyyut was the one who’d given me my magical objects and powers. He was from Planet Popinpobopia. The Magic Police had found out that Earth was facing a crisis and had sent him on a mission to save our planet. Since then I’d been using the powers he’d given me to protect the Earth."

but as she matures to her 30s if anything her belief that she herself is from Planet Popinpobopia, and that she has to resist being sucked into the work and baby-producing Factory of the Earthlings, only strengthens.

But where in CSW, Keiko was developed as a character with whom the reader can have sympathy, here the novel's main technique is to simply continually dial things up a notch each chapter and see which taboo it can break next (indeed Natsuki and some fellow Popinpobopians express this as their specific intent). There is a strong critique also in here of the treadmill of life, particularly for women, but it felt too exaggeratedly done to have any real satirical bite.

3 stars.

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (Conveinence Store Woman) is like nothing I've read before and as much as it took for me to wrap my head around it, I was struck with evolving insights long after I closed the book. As a young girl, Natsuki, is an outsider who suffers constant abuse and ridicule. To cope, she escapes to a world of fantasy where her plush toy hedgehog, Piyyut, an ambassador from Planet Popinpobopia, tells her she must use her powers to save herself from the "factory" of baby-making and other Earthling ills. As the story progresses, Natsuki, her husband and cousin embrace the Popompobopia lifestyle finally freeing themselves from Earthly constraints and expectations. This is a book that you have to experience and uncomfortably process as each layer is revealed, both sympathizing with and recoiling from the heroine's actions. This is not a book for everyone, but best for those who can immerse themselves in a narrative that is truly dark and surreal.

Advanced copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Available October 2020.

Trigger warnings: emotional and physical abuse, pedophilia, death, victim blaming

If you've read Murata's Convenience Store Woman, I think you will be familiar with her characters' awkwardness. They tend to not fit into society's mold, though they try to conform because that's what we are conditioned to do. However, Earthlings takes a look at social aversion beginning in children.

Natsuki and Yuu are cousins who see each other every summer when the entire Sasamoto family gets together at the Akishina house to honor their ancestors during the Obon festival. The Obon festival is the one time a year when Natsuki gets to see someone who likes her, when she isn't a dumpster for her family or dreading her summer cram school with Mr. Igasaki, who Natsuki describes as "a little bit not okay," and when Yuu can be free from acting like the man of the house for his widowed mother. Yuu tells Natsuki that he is an alien and he searches for his crashed spaceship around Akishina every year in hopes that he can escape Earth and go home.

Both Natsuki and Yuu have a difficult home life, both are viewed as weird children by their immediate family, and maybe this is why they eagerly await the next summer when they can be together again. Natsuki becomes more and more desperate each summer, and convinces Yuu that her stuffed bunny Piyyut is from the same planet, Popinpobopia, and that the spaceship is in Akishina and can carry them both away this upcoming summer.

Unfortunately they don't escape Earth that fateful summer, and they go from being alien children to non-conforming adult members of The Factory. This is what Natsuki calls society. The factory's job is to conform - work, get married, produce children and contribute to society. All one has to do is fit in.

"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."
This is where Murata doubles down on her social commentary, especially when it comes to sex and sexual attraction, but in Earthlings she introduces the reader to the characters' childhood traumas and experiences - letting the reader wonder at nature v. nurture.

By the end of the story, Natsuki, Yuu, and Natsuki's husband Tomoya, have entered a sort of fever dream that leaves the reader gaping and wide-eyed. I personally couldn't decide between covering my gaping mouth or cackling in bewildered macabre humor as the trio embraces their alien-ness. I think it depends on whether the reader is an Earthling or a little bit Popinpobopian.

I enjoyed Murata's Convenience Store Woman, so I was excited to receive this advance copy. Earthlings is nothing like Convenience Store Woman and it is exciting to see the interesting workings of Murata's mind when it comes to her writing. This book is quite odd and has disturbing parts for sure, but there is also great beauty in the descriptions of the different locales where the book takes place. I think it has a lot to offer, especially to readers with an interest in and some knowledge of Japan.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the free ARC.
A follow-up to Convenience Store Woman paints the same picture of Japanese culture, you need to have a great life and make the family proud. Our title character wants anything but that. Another interesting look into the Japanese way of life.