Title- Earthlings
Author- Sayaka Murata (Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)
Series- N/A
Published- 2020
Page Count- 247 pages
Publishing House- Granta Books
Genre- translated fiction, magical realism
Rating- 2/5 stars
Content Warnings- Child Abuse, Sexual Assault (on a child), Murder, Cannibalism
About the Author
Sayaka Murata (村田沙耶香 Murata Sayaka; born August 14, 1979) is a Japanese writer. She has won the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the Mishima Yukio Prize, the Noma Literary New Face Prize, and the Akutagawa Prize.
Taken from Sayaka's Wikipedia page
Plot
Natsuki isn't like the other girls. She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She might be a witch, or an alien from another planet. Together with her cousin Yuu, Natsuki spends her summers in the wild mountains of Nagano, dreaming of other worlds. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the two children forever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what.
Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?
Taken from Goodreads
Opinions
I had picked up this book after seeing it in a bookshop (remember when we could go to bookshops?) and then saw Convince Store Woman (also by Murata) all over the internet. I liked the cover and I thought the premise sounded interesting. I bought a signed edition as it sounded like a book I would really like. I was very wrong.
Before I get into why I didn't like it, I would like to talk about the marketing on this book. I feel that the marketing really did this book a huge injustice. A lot of the reviews, including the ones on the back, talk about how funny this book is. It is not a funny book. It's a deeply harrowing book. The cover also makes it seem like it's going to be fun and fluffy. While the toy hedgehog is important to the story, by having it on the cover it's actually quite misleading. Beth, from BooksNest, made this amazing thread on Twitter pointing out why the marketing was so bad for this book. They really tried to paint it in a light that it isn't.
The only vaguely positive thing I have to say is that I kinda get the message this book was aiming for. It was a commentary on society and the expectations we have. I liked that message. Even though attitudes have changed, there is still an expectation to live a traditional life and conform to it. It does feel like we are all being churned out by factories, something the book mentions over and over. This message had the potential to be really powerful, but with the direction it went in, it just lost me.
I found my experience reading this to be disturbing and harrowing. At first, it seemed okay. Then the child abuse and sexual assault plot lines were introduced. A scene that made me feel quite uncomfortable was the scene were the main character, I think aged 11 or 12 and the other character being 12 or 13, have sex. Yes, sometimes people that young do have sex, but it felt uncomfortable to read. The last twenty pages of this book made me feel physically sick. I normally have quite a strong stomach for violence/gruesome scenes as I know they're not real, but this was the first time I have ever felt repulsed by something I've read.
I'm glad this book was so short as it made it an incredibly quick read, but as I had wanted to enjoy this, I found it a huge disappointment. This is my second two star read of 2021 and normally the lowest I give is three stars. I will not be keeping my copy and no longer have a desire to read Convince Store Woman. What started as a promising book, quickly became an uncomfortable read.
Carenza :) x
