I completely enjoyed the author's earlier novel The Convienence Store Woman and was looking forward to this one. While this narrative was nothing at all like her earlier work, I enjoyed this one even more. I loved the subversive narrative and found the satire to be spot on.

I am so moved by this novel. It's entirely unique and yet it flows mysteriously in the same mighty river of fiction that has sprung up in these last years, written by women from all over the world, who are suddenly writing in a fierce and visceral and entirely new way about what it means to be a woman.

This novel is outrageous and funny in some parts, and it's outrageous and heartbreaking in others. I never knew what to expect, but then, every time the unexpected happened on the page, I thought: "of course. I know this feeling. I've lived this feeling, even if I've never thought about it quite this way before now."

I wasn't entirely on board for Murata's previously translated novel, "Convenience Store Woman," which struck me as accomplished, but a little safe. EARTHLINGS, in contrast, is radically risky. It's likely to be one of my favorites of the year. Murata invites us readers to take a leap into the unknown with her story, only for us to discover later that we know all too well what she's writing about.

I wanted to read this book because I really enjoyed Convenience Store Woman (Saya Murata's other novel). Earthling is a kinda short but it is also a really catchy book. Even though the cover suggests that it is an innocent and sweet book, the story is really dark. Earthlings covers many trigger warning topics such as incest, child sexual abuse and cannibalism. The message of this book was really poweful and realistic. I would totally recommend this book for those who can handle the topics it covers.

3 1/2 stars. Hello Kitty has gone dark. I loved the bright blithe spirit of Keiko, the heroine of the author's previous book, [book:Convenience Store Woman|38357895]. This book takes that same spirit, subjects it to childhood trauma and awful parenting, and gives us a new heroine, Natsuko - a woman like no other I've met in fiction. Natsuko is the concoction that results from throwing female compliance into a blender with Sci Fi, satire, and a dash of the movie 'Parasite'. The cover couldn't be more perfect.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Earthlings.

I'll be honest - my interest was drawn in by the adorable cover and the author, whose previous book I read, so I was super excited when my request was approved.

Earthlings is definitely a book you shouldn't judge by its cover.

The cute image belies the very dark, very disturbing, and very tragic story of a young girl searching for comfort and solace from the very people who are supposed to protect and comfort her.

She is verbally and physically abused by her indifferent parents and older sister, abused by a pedophile teacher and retreats into a fantasy world as a way to escape the horrors of her abusive childhood and molestation.

The book is short, but not for the faint of heart.

There are heartrending triggers like sexual violence, suicide, child abuse plus disturbing topics like incest and cannibalism. The story wasn't weird; it was just sad. Disturbing. Dark doesn't even begin to describe how I felt as I was reading.

The author is also taking jabs at the societal expectations expected of men and women, mostly women, which she also tackled in her first book.

The ending is a shock, but not unexpected.

Earthlings is not just about refusing to conform to the expectations society expects an able bodied women (and men) to conform to, but it's about alienation, confusion about one's place in the world, and how we perceive ourselves when no one seems to care about you except you so who cares what people think.

Earthlings is not a book for everyone, but if you're looking for something uncomfortable, unsettling and very different, give this a try.

Well that was unexpected. Our heroine (?) has a truly miserable life- abused verbally and physically by her mother, her whole family dynamics are awful, and her teacher is outright molesting her. But to make things worse the only person she seems to love is taken from her in a brutal way when she tries to save herself (as best she can) from her reality. Throw in a treatise against modern life and the factory that is societal expectations and it’s a heck of a ride. And then it really twists at the end.

This is nothing I expected, but I think it will haunt me. Just read it.

I don’t know how to describe this book without giving too much away. It’s pretty short and I don’t want to spoil anything, but know that this book is super fucking weird, but you can’t stop reading. Do not be fooled by the cute hedgehog on the cover, this isn’t for the faint of heart.

(I’ll put some content warning below under a few line breaks for those who want to go into it a little more prepared than others – I should have looked up content warnings before I read).

Earthlings centre’s the story of Natsuki at two times in her life, the first as a primary school aged child, and the second as a woman in her thirties. As a child, Natsuki has an imaginary friend of sorts, an alien named Piyyut from the planet Popinpobopia who inhabits a plush hedgehog. Natsuki retains this connection to the planet Popinpobopia as an adult, as events and people from her childhood follow her.

I read this book as a hyperbolic fictional depiction of expectations placed on women (and men) by society and how these social pressures manifest in different ways. How Murata relates the Earthlings to the Aliens in the story is a really interesting exercise, but I’ll admit that sometimes it was pushed a bit far for me.

I would recommend this book to people who like strange stories with ‘taboo’ subjects. If you liked The Vegetarian by Han Kang or Bunny be Mona Awad you might like this, it’s not similar to either in plot, but in the general feeling of being unsettled as what you are reading gets stranger and stranger and you wonder how far it will go. Out 16 October 2020 from Grove Atlantic.
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Content warnings for detailed depictions of: child sexual abuse, incest and cannibalism.

I enjoyed Murata’s previous novel Convenience Store Woman, and was prepared to really like this one, but it was a little too over the top. Sex with cousins, adult male teachers who do despicable things to our young narrator, abusive parents, suicide, murder, graphic cannibalism….like every trigger warning forever. This book is basically like the darker, more obvious sibling to Convenience Store Woman. It felt a little like the author took the same themes and ideas, turned the ‘dark and messed up’ dial way up and spat out the same book. I expect this was intended to have an effect similar to the movie Parasite, but without any of the brilliance.

This book was like a fever dream. There were points in this book where my mouth was literally agape because of the things happening in it, there were points where I found myself nodding my head in agreement but at the end of it, I don’t know what to think of it.

Let me start of by saying that this book has trigger warnings for pretty much everything possible: child abuse, sexual abuse, incest, gaslighting, murder, cannibalism.

The book starts off with the perspective of Natsuki (who is the main character in our story). She’s about eleven years old and she has a friend (her stuffed toy) who she thinks is an alien. Her cousin, Yuu, also says he’s an alien and thus begins a journey where we see a lot of things happening from her being eleven to her marrying Tomoya and living a marriage of convenience. I do not wish to say much to spoil what happens, so I’ll stop there.

What I did take from this book is that the author has some interesting stances on society and the way we live. The society is ‘The Factory’ in the book. They think that a man and a woman should get married and behave like tools for The Factory to create more tools aka children. When there are people who don’t wish to do this, they are ostracized and criticized. Which is why the 3 characters truly believe that they are ‘aliens’ from another planet and are not like ‘the Earthlings’. They’re breaking away from the mold that society is trying to put them in.

The writing is actually quite great because I feel that great writing is when it can bring out emotion in you, whether good or bad and this book definitely did that. I liked the characterizations of the people in the book. In the beginning you might not understand why a person is behaving like so, but as the book moves on, you try to understand. I do think however, that the author painted people either black or white and there wasn’t much room for grey.

If you are a fan of ‘weird books’ that are definitely smart, then this book is for you. I appreciated the book and what it tried to say but there were parts of it that I just couldn’t digest and hence, gave it a 3.5 star. But hey, that could just be ‘The Earthling’ in me.

Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for my honest review.

Well, that was absolutely disturbing. Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse(verbal, physical, and sexual), Cannibalism, and Incest.

I went into this thinking it would a quirky fast read. While I did make it through this book quickly, quirky is by no means a word I would use to describe Earthlings. This book is dark and tragic and strange. I wanted to know the story, but also wanted to get out of the world Murata weaved as quickly as possible. Earthlings is not for the faint of heart, but if you are looking for something distressing and engulfing this will scratch that itch.

TW: Sexual assault, child abuse, incest, cannibalism.
3,5 Stars

Earthlings is probably the hardest book I’ve ever had to review. I do think the book is smart but because of some topics and scenes, it was hard and sometimes weird to read it. It’s the first book I’ve read by Sayaka Murata, I didn’t have the chance to read Convenience Store Woman yet but from what I’ve read, the atmosphere of the two are completely different. So, I picked Earthlings with no preconception about the author or her writing style.

Earthlings is divided into two different time period; the beginning of the book is focused on Natsuki’s childhood while the rest is on her adulthood (with a few flashbacks to her childhood).

I found Natsuki as a character really interesting because she seemed to feel really disconnected from what is expected from a woman, especially in Japanese society: first getting married and soon after starting to have children. She refers to her town as “a collection of nests, a factory for manufacturing babies”, her husband will also call the society they live in “the baby factory” as if the sole purpose of human being was to create life. I think it highlights the pressure put on woman to have kids once they are married. Wanting to be a mother is foreign concept to her, she doesn’t seem to understand it, but as a child, she is, nonetheless, trying to work hard to become part of that society by working hard in order to do well in at school. Natsuki’s sister is actually the perfect example of what a Japanese woman is supposed to be, married with a child even though she is not happy in her marriage (we will learn that she is having an affair later on in the book).

I was really confused about Natsuki’s “magical powers” at first until it became clearer as the story progress. Magical powers are used as a way to survive from her mom’s emotional and physical abuse and her teacher Mr Isagaki’s sexual’s abuse. “I have to use my magical powers on my whole body before my heart feels anything”. The magical powers as a way to protect herself from the pain, from feeling too much and break down. She even tells her mom about Igasaki’s abuse, but her mom is blaming her instead, which, unfortunately, is a situation a lot of victims of abuse do face. I found the scenes depicting Isagaki’s abuse even harder to read because they were told from the point of view of a kid.

Therefore, I won’t recommend this book to everyone because of the topics and some scenes that I found hard to read. The book can seem a little bit confusing, but I really like how Murata was condemning Japanese society through Natsuki’s character.

I admit that I was absolutely obsessed with "Convenience Store Woman" and read it instead of studying for my grad school exams. So when Sayaka Murata published another book, you better believe I NEEDED TO get my hands on it.

In many ways, "Earthlings" is very similar of Murata's first novel in English: simple writing style with attention to sensory details and memories, the main heroine as an outcast living in her own world, and the exploration of what it means fit into a society as a 'normal' person. However, "Earthlings" stands out as much more difficult and absolutely heartbreaking.

Meet Natsuki. On the surface, she is a normal, shy girl. But deep inside, Natsuki knows she doesn't fit in; she is convinced that she's an alien from another planet, desperately trying to be human. But her feelings of inadequacy are exacerbated, or rather caused, by gross abuse in multiple spheres of her young life.

Murata's new novel is strange and fascinating. It transports you to a faraway place, both because it's set in Japan and because it explores a mind that is very different yet relatable. However, the subject matter can be a trigger to some, and is most certainly heartbreaking. "Earthlings" is guaranteed to stay in my thoughts for a long time.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Earthlings is the second of 10 books written by Japanese author Sayaka Murata to be translated into English. The first, Convenience Store Woman, was published in 2018 and became a bestseller. I have not read Convenience Store Woman, but after reading Earthlings I did some research to learn more about this author and her unique voice, and odd, but compelling story. I learned that critics and reviewers had a hard time describing and categorizing Convenience Store Woman- was it humor, dark humor, or horror? Was it charming, disturbing, weird, yet at the same time engaging and charming? Earthlings can be described similarly.

If you have not read Convenience Store Woman or Earthlings, be prepared. Earthlings is categorized on Amazon as Coming of Age Fiction. The beginning of the book does seem like a Coming of Age story. Natsuki is a preteen Japanese girl who tells her story in the first person. She does not connect with her family; her strongest attachment is to a plush toy hedgehog. At a family gathering at her grandparents, Natsuki and her boy cousin Yuu connect and they share that they are both aliens from another planet.

As Natsuki grows, the book jumps to her life over twenty years after her eventful summer with Yuu, we see that she continues to be an outsider, to her family and to society. She doesn’t want to be part of the Factory, which is how she views Japanese society. Is she mentally unbalanced? Is she suffering from PTSD? Or is she a keen observer of life and it’s rules and taboos?

Part love story, part horror, this is an unforgettable story. The writing is incredible; the author uses such simple words and phrases to create such complex thoughts and feelings. A book that is disturbing and readable, all at the same time.

I received an advance digital review copy from NetGalley and the publisher, Grove Press. This is my honest review.

Easily the most disturbing thing I have ever read, and I don't tend to shy away from disturbing novels.
I loved Convenience Store Woman so I was very excited to get an advanced reader copy of this.

This is MUCH darker than Convenience Store Woman, with the same themes of society and isolation. I am not sure that the same fans of that book will be on board for this journey.

Wow, I had to let this one sink for a while. Cannibalism, murder, incest—Sayaka Murata doesn't spare out one taboo topic in her newest novel 'Earthlings'. The plot of this short book though sounds very simple: A young girl (Natsuki) and her cousin (Yuu) don't feel at home with their families—or, planet Earth, that is. Due to a side comment by Yuu's mother, Yuu takes on to the belief that he is indeed an alien from another planet. Natsuki, who has a plush toy (a hedgehog) she believes to be from another planet as well, dives right into this and based on the children's naivety and make-believe, they truly believe this. But when the two children are discovered having sex, all hell break loose, the family is torn apart and Nariko and Yuu are forbidden to see each other again. This holds on until 20 years later, when they finally meet again.

Instead of having outgrown the ideas of the far away planet of Popinpobopia (yes, that's what's it's called), Natsuki held on to this thought her whole life. She didn't grow accustomed to the tight Japanese societal boundaries of the so-called 'Factory', e. g. caring for the family, getting on with a good job and raising children for a woman, and being cared by said woman and having a well-paid job for a man. To escape these limitations, Natsuki even married a guy just like herself, who doesn't want to get sucked into the'Factory' and adhere to this life plan handed out to every person on Earth. The 'Factory' is their paraphrase for the whole force that urges each human being, each 'Earthling', into giving their life for work, family and, as soon as appropiate, children.

When Natsuki and her husband try to escape this madness, they go for a vacation to the house where it all began. They meet Yuu, who seems to have shaken off the ideas from another planet—or at least, he has buried them deep under society's expectations of himself and his life choices. But when he delves into conversation with Natsuki, he gets engrossed in the idea of Earthlings and aliens again and the three of them travel to a dark place where there's no turning back...

Skillfully written, powerful and so engrossing that you have to keep reading until the last page is finished. This is a masterpiece follow-up to 'Convenience Store Woman', which is in contrast the exact opposite of 'Earthlings', while tackling basically the same topic—societal expecations and the way you life with or against them. I loved every page of this short novel and am looking forward to further novels from Sayaka Murate coming our way!

Wow. Just wow. This book is unlike anything I have read before. It was my first incursion into Murata's fiction and I was not disappointed.

Earthlings follows the story of Natsuki, a child with a very vivid imagination and a very elaborate internal world. She thinks she is an alien on a mission to save the world. Natsuki likes spending her summer holidays in her grandparents' home where every year she meets her cousin Yuu whom she is madly in love with. When a series of tragic events threaten to separate the two children forever, Natsuki is forced to reconsider the morality and values of the world she lives in.

This book does not shy away from anything. In her beautiful prose, Murata alternates descriptions of the orderly life in Japan with scenes of death, sexual abuse and even cannibalism. I was gripped from start to finish and I could not put this book down. Earthlings challenges the conventions that rule all our lives: work hard for the good of Society and have children who can, in turn, do the same. It may not be the newest of topics, but Murata certainly tackles it uniquely. Natsuko's personal journey reminded me of Yeong-hye's personal and physical deterioration in Hang Kang's The Vegetatian: both characters trying to defy societal norms by bringing to life their internal world in a very extreme way.

I have debated whether this book deserves 5 stars but I decided to settle to 4 for now. I loved ALL of it apart from the final 15/20 pages which became unnecessarily gory and did not add much to what Murata has been trying to say through this text for the previous 200 pages.

Thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for providing an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Not so subtle critique of the patriarchal, misogynist side of Japanese society (easily transposable to Western society, btw), where society-driven depersonalisation leads to the creation of twisted, alien psychology.

The book tells the story of Natsuke, a young Japanese girl, who is convinced she is an alien from another planet, trying desperately to become an Earthling. Her mother is horrible to her, her sister is not much better. She has a teacher who everyone adores, who abuses her sexually. The only person she feels a real connection with is her cousin Yuu, who she sees once a year on vacation. Yuu also wonders if he is an Earthling or not. They get 'married', and Natsuke proposes they have sex (they are married after all). They get caught by their family, all hell breaks loose, and they never see eachother again.

There's a time jump, and Natsuke is now in her thirties. She sees society as the Factory, where she is supposed to become a baby maker. She deliberately has married a man who has no feelings for her, who doesn't want to have sex with her, just to get her family off her back.

From here the book takes the analogies of the Factory, and the question of whether they're Earthlings or aliens, to their more or less logical conclusions. Which means a lot of extreme behaviour and gore, and it's all not very surprising. Maybe it's because I've grown up with a lot of Dutch culture, which always seems to go for extremes, but I'm at a point where a truly shocking twist is when characters don't go for the most extreme option.

One of the saddest and weirdest things I've read in a very long time. The third act of the book took a turn I was not expecting and wow--it was a shock, but kind of perfect after all that Natsuki had suffered at the hands of other people.

This book feels a lot like "Convenience Store Woman" by the same author but falls flat after a while. Natsuki feels as alienated as Keiko did but her personality is rather flat, just like her observations of the world are. People did not act nor feel like people do and the ending was rather unsettling. I did enjoy the first half of this story, but I could not empathize with anyone at all.

I like how the writing effectively portrays dissociation through the nearly emotionless narration. However, while I expected this to be dark, I was not quite prepared for the frequent explicit portrayals of child sexual abuse. It was definitely too much for me.