Earthlings by Sayaka Murata Review

Sayaka Murata’s back with another story of a social outsider - and it’s even worse than Convenience Store Woman!

Natsuki is a little girl that gets physically and verbally abused by her horrible mother, sexually abused by her teacher and, after a bout of incest, attempts suicide - guys, you’ll never believe it but somehow she turns out to be a complete mess of an adult!

Yeah I didn’t like Earthlings at all. A lot of the gross scenes felt gratuitously described to little or no effect (beyond the obvious shock factor) and the message Murata seemed to be going for felt trite and immature. Conformism is brainwashing, maaan, society is like a factory, etc. This kind of banal commentary isn’t new or clever - rejecting societal norms doesn’t make you a radical, it makes you an average teenager.

I get that Japanese society is more restrictive than most western societies. There’s a strong emphasis on family, living outside of the norm is discouraged, it’s patriarchal (though this is slowly changing), and the focus is much more on the group than the individual. Perhaps something like this would seem more transgressive in that context. But not to this reader in the UK - this was just childish silliness.

Natsuki was an annoying character for the most part even though I felt sorry for her. Her inner dialogue was irritating - as a kid she’s either banging on about survival or wittering on about being an alien or a witch with her imaginary friend Piyyut, and as an adult she’s talking idiotically about rationalism. Yuu and Tomoya were equally stupid - they all deserved each other. Three morons exchanging stilted comments about nothing to highlight… what? That this is what a buttoned-down society reduces people to when they don’t fall in line? I’m not impressed if it is.

I found Earthlings unpleasant for large portions of the novel, the characters all absurd, the point obvious and simple, and the story always really, really boring. After this and Convenience Store Woman, I don’t think Sayaka Murata’s books are for me.