"As a child, Natsuki doesn't fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. Each summer, Natsuki counts down the days until her family drives into the mountains of Nagano to visit her grandparents in their wooden house in the forest, a place that couldn't be more different from her grey commuter town. One summer, her cousin Yuu confides to Natsuki that he is an extraterrestrial and that every night he searches the sky for the spaceship that might take him back to his home planet. Natsuki wonders if she might be an alien too. Back in her city home, Natsuki is scolded or ignored and even preyed upon by a young teacher at her cram school. As she grows up in a hostile, violent world, she consoles herself with memories of her time with Yuu and discovers a surprisingly potent inner power. Natsuki seems forced to fit into a society she deems a "baby factory" but even as a married woman she wonders if there is more to this world than the mundane reality everyone else seems to accept. The answers are out there, and Natsuki has the power to find them.

Dreamlike, sometimes shocking, and always strange and wonderful, Earthlings asks what it means to be happy in a stifling world, and cements Sayaka Murata's status as a master chronicler of the outsider experience and our own uncanny universe."

All the good I could say about this book just comes down to me saying "BUY THIS THERE'S A HEDGEHOG ON THE COVER!!!"

I don’t actually know how to review this book. I believe the whole thing is beyond anyone’s expectations. I’ve read Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman before, but this one is out of hand. Trigger warning: sexual abuse, violence, blood. Proceed with caution!⁣
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The main theme of the book is about the main characters battling whether they should conform to the Factory—society’s—values, or just abandon everything completely—not wanting to be brainwashed. Full of taboos, the plot is told through Natsuki’s point of view where she experienced verbal and sexual abuses that she formed a split personality to cope with them. She grew up and got married out of convenience but still didn’t want to have a baby—which means she defied the Factory. Natsuki, her husband Tomoya, and her cousin Yuu are social outcasts. They believed they’re from a planet called Popinpobopia, and are not Earthlings. So in the end they decided to just own it, and this is where it gets even darker.⁣
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I think what ached my heart the most was when Natsuki tried to tell the adults and her supposed friends a few years later about the sexual abuse her teacher had done to her, they didn’t believe her because—you guessed it—the young teacher seemed like a nice guy and it was rude of her to accuse him of being a pervert. Oh and her sister is such an airhead. ⁣
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Anyway, it seems like Murata didn’t hold anything back with this one. I honestly loved it. Again, if you plan to read this—I think you should, please proceed with caution and drop any expectations you have. 😅⁣

The most depraved book I ever read and yet I was completely enthralled. Truly strange and not for the faint of heart!

"Deep in the mountains of Akishina where Granny and Grandpa live, fragments of night linger even at midday.
- Earthlings, Sayaka Murata"

Earthlings starts with Natsuki, aged 11, visiting her grandparents in the fictional Japanese mountains of Akishina with her family. Everything is nice, she wants to see her cousin Yuu and she has to tell him that she found out, that she has magical powers. Great.

No. It slowly starts to become clear, that Natsuki is protecting herself from her emotionally abusive family with her imaginary world. And it escalates drastically from there. We jump into Natsuki’s life in her 30s and learn some more horrible things about her past. She has tried to ingrate into society, but failed. But she found a husband, who is as unable to live in the society as she is, and they decide to visit her grandparents house in the mountains again. Her cousin Yuu is living there currently, and the three of them built a … interesting trio of misfits. Things turn out impressively bad in the short span of 250 pages.

When I saw this book for review on Netgalley, I was excited. I haven’t come around to reading her last book (Convenience Store Woman) yet, but what I heard about it was great – an unconventional woman fighting against societies expectations of her? Great. Everyone seemed to like it. So my interest was piqued with this new book. (I wanted to be one of the cool kids this time around, okay? Read the book before the new hype starts. I can be shallow, I know.)

Unfortunately, I don’t think this one will get that much hype. I was totally surprised by the dark and cruel content of this book. Don’t let the sweet little hedgehog on the cover fool you, this book need trigger warnings.

And as far as I can see on Goodreads so far, other people felt like me. A big, fat “What did I just read?!”

The writing was beautiful, which made the content so much more harrowing.

The Writing

The writing was beautiful, which made the content so much more harrowing.

The descriptions especially of the grandparents’ house and the mountains was incredible immersive. But Murata also found a way to describe the abusive scenes in a way, that felt (appropriately) detached. She is a great writer, who can tune the tone of her writing to fit the character and content.

The Plot

So what is actually happening in this book you might ask. Do you really want to know? Then go ahead, spoiler warning! (And trigger warning for that matter)

The book starts with Natsuki who has an awful family and who’s only friends are her toy hedgehog (who is apparently talking to her and giving her imaginative magical powers) and her cousin Yuu, who she sees once a year at her grandparents house.Turns out, Yuu’s family life isn’t great either and they both form a bond through their traumatic childhood. They both escape into imaginary worlds and its all tragic, but sweet.

Then it gets slightly stranger, when they decide to become girlfriend and boyfriend. Natsuki’s family leaves after a couple of days and we see Natsuki’s horrible life at home and school. Natsuki is sexually harassed by a teacher and no one helps her when she says anything about this. Instead, everyone is accusing her or laughing at her.

Next year in the summer, Natsuki is back at her grandparents house and meets Yuu again. They have a childish marriage ceremony in the middle of the night. That would have been okay, I guess, if they didn’t also have sex afterwards… they’re 13 and well… cousins. They get found in the middle of it and everyone is upset. Natsuki is imprisoned and for the next years she is not allowed to leave the house unsupervised.

We skip ahead to Natsuki, now in her 30s, who has a husband now. They are a marriage out of convenience, because both needed to get out of their parents houses and they both don’t want any physical contact. They have divided their apartment and they are basically flatmates. Natsuki has told him about her grandparents house in the mountains and they decide to visit.

Turns out, Yuu isn’t doing too well in his live and stays at the house for free as long as he has no job. The three of them form a horrible trio and decide to turn their back on society… because they are not humans, but aliens. And then more gory things happen and we learn some more things about Natsuki’s past and it all comes down in a cannibalistic climax. (Yes you read that right…)

I left out some specifics, but I hope you got the gest. Everything escalated quickly.

"Survive, whatever it takes. - Earthlings, Sayaka Murata"

Conclusion

It wasn’t all a total frenzy though. The first third actually had me gripped. I didn’t expect to read about an abused girl, but hey, it was well written and tragic. And in between the gore and the alien delusions, there were some seriously poignant comments about society and feminist critique. But still… that couldn’t weigh out the cannibalism and surreal characters.

And it made me sad, because there was no character growth in Natsuki or a serious contemplation of her abuse. The book treated those topics poorly, in my opinion, because it just happened to her and the end result is, that Natsuki ends up in a manic gory freak show? What was the point in that? No one gets punished. No one called out for their abusive behavior.

In the end, the abused become the monsters.

And what kind of ending is that?

If you want to read a positive review, please check out Kim’s review on her blog.

Admirers of Murata's earlier Convenience Store Woman will appreciate this story of growing up and how the past and present interact. An encompassing and at times disturbing novel.

There's hardly any other way to describe this book besides absolutely batshit crazy. The plot is almost unbelievable in the lengths that it goes to surprise the reader, but Murata still manages to pull off a great book. She keeps us guessing all throughout the novel on how crazy it will get, how far it will go, and then still manages to surpass that. At the same time, there are so many thought-provoking and moving passages and insights from the characters that, despite the madness they surround themselves with, really resonated with me. The only reason this isn't a 5-star for me is that I felt it dragged in places and got repetitive. Murata really shines when she writes about insane situations that are hard to wrap your head around, but I felt that she struggled with the more mundane aspects of this book. Overall I absolutely loved this as a wild, refreshing read, but I'm not sure I would recommend it to absolutely everyone unless they were prepared to digest some of the more gruesome subject matters in the book.

Well, that was a wild ride.

I go into books without reading the synopsis if I can at all avoid it, I went into this as blind as possible, with a trust in Sayaka and an adorable cover, I was convinced I was in for a cute little adventure with sweet Piyyut. Wow am I glad I had no idea where I was being taken. Avoid reading the summary with this one - it covers too much of the story. Earthlings grabbed my heart, tore it to pieces, and then patched it up and fed it to me in a lovely soup.

I am a massive fan of weird fiction and this hits so many of the points which I adore. A story of social rejection, abuse, and isolation, this is literary fiction though an uncanny lens. Despite the heavy themes Earthlings is an easy read as it is well written and flows beautifully. With equal measures of adoration and repulsion I have thoroughly enjoyed this venture into Sayaka Murata’s mind.

[This eARC was generously provided to me by Grove Atlantic via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Two warnings about this book:
Don’t let the cute hedgehog fool you. This is a very dark book.
Unless your trigger is puppies and rainbows, consider yourself warned.

This is a book in two parts: Natsuki’s childhood, and later.

As a child, Natsuki loved going up into the mountains to visit her grandparents. Every year they would host the whole huge family for a reunion. While there, Natsuki would play exclusively with her cousin, Yuu. This week was their respite from their real life, which was no bed of roses. There, they would pretend to be aliens and magicians, dreaming of escape to their home planet of Popinpobopia.

The second part is set when Natsuki is in her 30s. She still has the mentality of an 11 year old. She is now married to a man, Tomoya, who is also mentally stalled. He convinces Natsuki to take a vacation to the mountain house, where they meet Yuu again. The cousins have not seen each other for over 20 years, due to an event that happened at the last family gathering.

To say that things get weird in this book is an understatement. It’s also possibly the least predictable book I’ve read.

As stated above, this book has a lot of trigger warnings. There is abuse of nearly every kind, and violence, and it’s not sugar-coated. However, these horrific events have importance to the story. This is a psychological novel, about how people respond to abuse. And how those close to the abused react to those responses.

There is a stigma around mental health in many, if not all, cultures, and the author brings attention to that. She points out the flaws in believing that one person’s trauma harms a family’s reputation. She also shows how sweeping the issue under the rug creates more problems later. By showing what could happen in a worst case scenario, the author forces the reader to consider mental health as something that needs treating, not ignoring.

The writing is subtle at times. At other times, it hits the reader over the head. But it’s always effective. The characters were drawn beautifully, though not at all likeable. The storyline moves along at a quick pace- I was surprised, though disgusted, when it ended. The ending wasn’t wrapped up in a bow, but a bow was inferred. Once again, if you have any triggers at all, be warned. This book hits nearly all of them.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

This was a really unique title that I think patrons will love, so I have ordered a couple copies for the library. Thank you so much for the advanced read!

Seldom am I filled with the urge to reread a book immediately. In fact, I dare say I have never had that feeling — until now. Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings swerves between the absurd and the inane, sending the reader on an intoxicating rocket ride into outer space while their feet are still firmly planted on the ground. Her language is evocative and lyrical and marks a stark contrast with the down-to-earth dialogue between characters. This is coupled by Ginny Tapley Takemori’s masterful translation — a seamless and faithful recreation of the original Japanese.

I loved Murata's Convenience Store Woman, but I don't think there was anything I could have done to prepare me for Earthlings. Readers who loved her last may want to adjust their expectations, but fans of Ryu Murakami's Coin Locker Babies will love it.

Link to full review on Tokyo Weekender: https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2020/08/book-review-earthlings-by-sayaka-murata-is-a-scathing-review-of-the-society-we-live-in/

So, for me, this was a little too much. Having read and enjoyed Convenience Store Woman - which has, more or less, the same message as this book - I was excited to see what Murata would do with this concept. But where Convenience Store Woman excels because its focus is so narrow and the writing is so tight, this book, which touches on childhood trauma and familial abuse and magical powers and aliens (with a dash of body horror to top everything off) reads as ridiculous rather than insightful. By the end the message is so diluted by the over-the-top-ness of everything going on that you can hardly embrace any of the truth of it. And - I'll just say it - it's gross. The stuff that happens in those last few chapters (and, hell, a number of the earlier ones) is a trial to wade through.

I admire the the idea Murata was going for here, I really do, but this book is pulled in too many directions for it to shine through clearly. I'll keep recommending Convenience Store Woman, but I don't think I'd ever recommend this.

This book needs a slew of trigger warnings, and for that reason, I was very uneasy reading it. I knew that it was that way going in, and had to make sure I was ok reading it, and I was still a bit freaked out.
A seriously transgressive book, not for the light hearted (and maybe moreso than most).
I'd put it on the same level as "Haunted" for disturbing aspects.
Be warned though, it's really hard going in places, and I'll be honest, some of it I had to skip. There are very few books I do the equivalent of covering my eyes and asking if it's done yet, (which is why I mentioned Haunted, that book makes me do it too), but if that's your kind of thing, and you want a surreal, cynical view on society, and you can handle seriously difficult topics from abuse, incest, murder and I think I may have skipped over other stuff, then you may want to go into this one....carefully.
I'll be talking about this and Haunted on my blog, and will return with that link later.
3.5 stars

I'm not sure how to rate this because WTF just happened!

This is a coming of age novel but where some of the young characters are from the planet Popinpopoboa (or think they are) and challenge the Earthlings rules.
It's amazing in places and moving, but in the other places deeply disturbing. The childhood scenes and first half or more of the book I'd give 4 stars, especially about the Earthlings and the factory we are all in, then it all went a bit too weird for me personally at the end.

What an experience though!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I did not like this book AT ALL. It starts out strange and sad and just gets worse. At first I blamed the main character’s strange behavior on her youth and then thought it could have been due to the abuse, but that really doesn’t justify her resulting behavior. Topics such as child abuse, molestation, incest, murder, and cannibalism are not topics I want to read about. This book was not for me!

Earthlings definitely a wild ride of a story!
From abuse, trauma, incest, and even murder

I’ll release a full review on my blog soon! But what can I say about this story it kept me engaged throughout the whole story always making me wonder what’s gonna happen next so much so I found myself spacing out in my actual life thinking about the book.

The main character Natsuki you feel bad for her the whole time because all the adults in her life really abuse her in one way or another and it just seems she can’t catch a break. I also loved the way they used Piyutt her toy hedgehog almost as a coping mechanism for her emotions and to deal with trauma. She even still relies on Piyutt even when we hit a time skip to Natsuki in her 30’s. Although 20 years have passed Natsuki still doesn’t know how to deal with her feelings so much so she starts to resent society referring to it as “The Factory” for the remainder of the book.

I think if I had to nit pick anything about the book it would have to be Natsuki’s husband Tomoya I just wish they would have given more story to his background and family and why he is the way he is also at times I felt Tomoya was just there to advance the story at times sometimes being way to eager to do stuff so much so that Natsuki would be like woah hold on a second but besides his character I think the writing is great.

Overall I definitely recommend this book! I hardly wanted to put it down the whole time I was reading it. And the amount of things that just happen in this book your gonna wonder what will happen next.


Goodreads review link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50269327-earthlings

This is what I expected from the author of Convience Store Woman, but so much weirder.

I liked the first half of this book, it was quirky with a relatable main character who believes she is not human. Her and her Cousin make it a mission to be anything other than an "Earthling".

But the more this book went on, the more ridiculous it got. I get that some books are of an aquired taste but Earthlings just seemed to step into the bazaar category with no rhyme or reason. I would read another translated novel by Sayaka Murata but I wouldn't recommend this book to.. well.. most people. The writing was beautiful, but the story ended up being too weird for even me.

The story quickly turns from quirky to dark and the “magic” is revealed as something very different from the blurb. It’s not a pleasant or easy book, it makes you feel uncomfortable and scared, but the more we talk about topics discussed in Sayaka Murata’s book, the better the conversation becomes. Especially when subjects like this are taboo in Japan and people rarely seek out help in abusive or mentally difficult situations, it’s important to bring them into popular literature that is accessed by a lot of people.

Her writing is very different, but by using simple words and structures she manages to entangle the reader into the story and bring them up-close to the action and the drama that is taking place in the book. I was definitely not prepared for what unfolded, but I love books where the blurb doesn’t give anything away and you don’t know what to expect after each page.

I started Earthlings by Sayaka Murata last night and finished it at 2AM! I could not stop reading. It was like I was trapped in a Popinpobopian tractor beam. Echoing other reviews I have read, if you go into this expecting something similar to Convenience Store Woman you will be horribly mistaken. The superb writing is there. The amazing translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori is there. That the story is a scathing critique of society and its prescribed roles (or the Factory as it is called here), these are the extent of the similarities.

Earthlings starts with Natsuki's annual summer trip to the family home for the Obon festival. She is eleven and accompanied by Piyyut, her stuffed hamster from the planet Popinpobopian, who has given her magic powers but can't speak human. She always looks forward to reuniting with her cousin Yuu who is himself an alien according to his mother. Together they search for the spaceship to take them home but events lead to their separation which enacts the part of the vow they made to each other, survive at all costs.

That is all I really want to say because not knowing wtf was going on is a big part of this reading experience. If you are up for anything and have a high tolerance for disturbing things, then this is for you. I definitely got The Vegetarian (Han Kang) vibes from reading this. I will put the content warnings in my tags comment because they are, in a way, spoilers. Don't look if you want to be totally shocked while reading.

Releasing October 1st. Thank you so much Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the chance to read this. The opinions here are all my own.

This book is quite the adventure and on a surface level it is nothing like Murata's first book. However, there are a few themes that have carried over such as society's desire for everyone to conform and live their life a certain way. However, this is basically a large middle finger to the status quo. Our main character, because she was basically abused by the older members of society as a child in different ways, grows up to rebel against the very foundations of society. She doesn't want to be another cog in the machine, or part in a factory. She wants to be herself, for herself, and she's lucky that she manages to find a few other people to support her in this belief. Sure, if you're someone who likes the idea of 2.5 kids, a dog, and a house with a white picket fence, you're probably going to view this book as pure insanity, but who isn't to say that living life only for the continuation of society and capitalism isn't insanity when viewed through a different angle?

Thank you to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for providing me with an e-ARC of this wild book. However, all thoughts, opinions, and stars are my own.

2.5, rounded up. I had a tough time figuring out how I felt about this one. There are many similarities to Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman--namely, the main character feeling isolated and "alien" and refusing to fit into the norms of society--but the scope is more broad. This works in that Murata's commentary is more effective, and the events that occur are more horrific (TW: sexual abuse of a child).

Did I enjoy reading this? No. Do I respect it? I...think so? Only time will tell.