Earthlings by Sayaka Murata and Ginny Tapley Takemori

An otherworldly coming-of-age tale of a woman who believes she is an alien, from the author of the international sensation Convenience Store Woman. Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman was one of the most unusual and refreshing bestsellers of recent years, depicting the life of a thirty-six-year-old clerk in a Tokyo convenience store. Now, in Earthlings, Sayaka Murata pushes at the boundaries of our ideas of social conformity in this brilliantly imaginative, intense, and absolutely unforgettable novel. As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit in with her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut, who talks to her. He tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. One summer, on vacation with her family and her cousin Yuu in her grandparents’ ramshackle wooden house in the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki decides that she must be an alien, which would explain why she can’t seem to fit in like everyone else. Later, as a grown woman, living a quiet life with her asexual husband, Natsuki is still pursued by dark shadows from her childhood, and decides to flee the “baby factory” of society for good, searching for answers about the vast and frightening mysteries of the universe—answers only Natsuki has the power to uncover. 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. Praise for Earthlings A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, TIME and Literary Hub Named a Most Anticipated Book by the New York Times, TIME, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, the Guardian, Vulture, Wired, Literary Hub, Bustle, PopSugar, and Refinery29 “Intimate, deadpan, and unflinchingly unhinged. . . . Exceptionally fun. . . . Amid all the hedgehog and alien talk is a novel that asks how happiness and freedom can be possible inside a stiflingly anxious world, and its answers, while grotesque, are worth reading.” —Wired “If you’re in the mood for weird, Sayaka Murata is always a reliable place to turn. . . . [Earthlings] centers on Natsuki, a character whose story begins in childhood with her cousin in the mountains and spirals ever more darkly (and bizarrely) into adulthood and its many strange reckonings. This is a story that’s best not to spoil, but it will get into your head.” —Seattle Times “It’s the book’s visceral, grim savagery, and those final shocking pages, that makes this such a vital, powerful novel. . . . Earthlings is the sort of challenging, confronting fiction that wakes you up with a jolt and leaves a lasting impression.” —Locus

I listened to the audio book, and I was taken for A RIDE. GOOD GRIEF. I Knew nothing about this book, just saw that the author of convience store woman had a new book out, and it had a cute hedgehog on the front and an interesting name. It's been on my TBR on libby since its release and yesterday I decided to pick it up.

i'll start out with (minor spoilers) a CW for abuse of all forms. this book is not for the faint hearted. I think this bait and switch is part of its appeal, but I wish i had known before getting into it. It doesn't stop there.

then there's BIG SPOILERS CW for CSA, rape/abuse, parent neglect/abuse to children, sex between children, victim blaming a CHILD, murder, murder again, murder again AND EVEN BIGGER SPOILERS CW - seriously this spoils the ending, read at your peril and cannibalism and LIVE CANNIBALISM. this isn't just a little cannibalism as a treat, this is EXTENSIVE DESCRIPTIONS OF EATING DEAD AND LIVE BODIES/PEOPLE.
I really should have looked up the first genre on this page as HORROR and not read this book. Horror is typically not a genre I like in any media. I don't even watch scary movies with friends. But I didn't know, and once I popped I could not stop.

I was enjoying immensely the little odd chuuni girl talking about her cute hedgehog friend and her magic mirror. and i really vibed with the parts of the books where she described her powers, the fictional planet, and appreciated the allegories around disassociation/protecting oneself from abuse and how that shows up differently in different individuals etc. it was horrifying, and the abuse was harrowing. But I was incredibly drawn into Natsuki's story. I found an odd vindication when she killed "the witch" - being her paedophile teacher. and the imagery around this was really interesting to read. I wish all abuse surviours a very murder your abuser, so it hit home for me. The parts describing the pink walls, blue blob, golden liquid were *chefs kiss* And when she couldn't put two and two together, when later it was revealed that he was murdered with a Scythe 'just like the one i used to kill the witch!'

The abuse descriptions/general theme of this book were heavy, and hard to get through. Sayaka does not pull her punches with being extremely graphic with this. (The period pad scene!!! BRO!!!) It's so unsettling and creepy. It took a real turn at the end and MAJOR ENDING SPOILERS: during the whole eating people section I found it really hard to get through, and I'm not sure if any of that even happened. How were they there chomping on each other's shoulders, index fingers, thighs, eyelids and internal organs and still able to stand/walk around the next day. Time to go and watch some youtube analysis and wash my ears out with bleach.

I really don't know how I felt about this book, It was not enjoyable or pleasant, but parts of it were really gripping and I couldn't put it down. its the classic ‘like watching a car crash'
But the ending really tipped it over for me and I couldn't handle it. Jeez this book is gonna stay with me for a long time

A tale of trauma and disassociation with a little bit of black comedy in the mix. Without spoiling too much (really benefits from going in blind), this is all at once terrifying, gripping and a ruthless examination of society.

As I am not easily disturbed, the dark parts of this book did not upset me (unsettle, perhaps, but not upset - though look at the tws on other posts, for if you are, there are some heavy things going on). My issue with the book was was writing itself...there was no clear voice, which made the book verge on less weird and more incomplete. Yes, I finished it, and yes, there were parts that shocked me (I am not an easy person to shock and I love the dark and morbid - again CHECK. TWs. because these went beyond just dark and morbid), but the inconsistent tone, voice, and writing made it just okay rather than good or great.

I nominate this one for the most ironic (/misleading?) cover of the decade.

Loved Murata's book Convenience Store Woman. This one explores some similar themes–alienation being the central one, but it's more intense, and comes at alienation from a different vantage point. There are lots of things to have trigger warnings about here, so please read up about it before reading it if you have triggers around child abuse in particular.

That said, it's a great book. The ending comes up quickly, and gets really fucked up at the very end, but it flows into that ending in an effortless way, kind of like riding some rapids and then hitting the falls.

Can't wait to read more from her.