Earthlings

by Sayaka Murata

Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator)

Natsuki isn't like the other girls. Together with her cousin Yuu, she spends her summers in the wild Nagano mountains, hoping a spaceship will take her home. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the cousins for ever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what.

Now, Natsuki is grown. She lives quietly in an asexual marriage, pretending to be normal, and hiding the horrors of her childhood from her family and friends. But dark shadows from Natsuki's past are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki prepares herself for a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?

A dark and magical reckoning with what it might take to survive a shattered life, Earthlings is an exhilarating cosmic flight that will leave you reeling.

• ISBN10: 0802157025
• ISBN13: 9780802157027
• Publish Date: 6 October 2020
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Grove Press
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 199
• Language: English

Reviews

[nora]

I went into this book knowing nothing about it, and now that I've read it I wish I still knew nothing.

Almost threw up at work because I was listening to the ending of this audiobook✌️

[empressbrooke]

I don't really know how to categorize this book, or rate it. I notice that a lot of people are shelving it under 'horror', which certainly makes sense, although if someone asked for horror recommendations this book wouldn't be one that comes to mind. I don't know if this one would come to mind for any recommendations unless someone said, "I want to read something that is completely bonkers and off the wall and defies any expectations I could possibly have."

It covers the familiar themes from the author's Convenience Store Woman, about not fitting in with societal expectations and the reactions of society trying to hammer unconventional people into place, but it was like someone took Convenience Store Woman and held it up to some funhouse mirrors. As other reviews note, it involves physical, sexual, and emotional child abuse that leads to the main character disassociating to cope (and therefore not being able to fit into society's expectations for her as she grows up), so that might be something that some people just prefer to avoid altogether. But as dire as that warning is, it doesn't really convey how totally bonkers and bizarre the plot gets.

Sometimes reviews like this, even if they're from a negative review, make me pick up the book because I'm dying to know exactly what elicited such a response. If you too are going, "Well, how bonkers could it possibly get? I am morbidly curious!" then this book might be for you!

[lovelybookshelf]

"My body is not my own."

I'm speechless and my stomach is in knots. The social commentary in this book, about the expectations and pressures society puts on people, and how people put those pressures on each other, is delivered so matter-of-factly and dealt with so aggressively that it heightens disturbing events to a level of disturbing I didn't think was possible. And THAT ENDING, what the hell?! Murata does not hold back.

This novel is so incredibly weird, devastatingly sad, and deeply distressing, and then the ending got gruesome and even WEIRDER. This would make a good pick for the bravest of book clubs, because you would have endless things to talk about, and you're either going to want to talk about those things or run the hell away and hide. 

TW: childhood emotional and physical abuse, parentification, molestation, incest, rape, derealization and depersonalization, suicidal ideation, attempted suicide, murder, cannibalism, graphic violence

NOTE: Despite book descriptions that say Natsuki's husband is asexual, there is no ace rep here. Choosing celibacy is not the same thing, and in the book, Natsuki specifically states her husband is heterosexual. It seems like some non-ace folks in marketing used their own inaccurate stereotypes and misunderstandings when they wrote up the book's description.

[kiracanread]

Thank you to NetGalley and Granta Publications for providing me with an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

Trigger Warnings for this book include: paedophilia, sexual abuse, incest, cannibalism, murder.

Sayaka Murata is one of the most incredibly unique writers I've ever had the honour of reading from. Following her book 'Convenience Store Woman' I didn't think they could possibly produce something more incredible, yet here we have 'Earthlings'.

Earthlings is the story of Natsuki, who we see at ages 11 and 34 being pressured to conform with societal norms, whilst dealing with past traumas and abuse, along with her cousin, Yuu, and husband Tomayo who've also suffered. The trio believe themselves to be aliens from the planet Popinpobopia in order to process what they've been through together.

This book was an absolute roller-coaster, I laughed, I was hurt, I found parts incredibly hard to read - yet when it all came together this was so incredible and intense that I just couldn't stop. Sayaka Murata will definitely be an insta-buy author for me from hereon-out.

If you're seeking an intense, hard-hitting but short novel, 'Earthlings' is the one for you.