Earthlings

A likely candidate for a top ten read of 2025, Earthlings has to rank as one of the most original and disturbing reads I have read for some time. If there is a commonality in Murata's fiction, then it is about the pressures faced by non-conforming neurodivergent people to fit in. However, the weirdness in Earthlings is a marked notch higher than in her prior work, Convenience Store Woman. There are a few taboos in this novel: think incest, sexual abuse, and cannibalism. We are more in the territory of Ryu than Haruki (Murakami). The premise of Earthlings asks, Have you ever felt different? Might I (or we) be aliens looking at a strange societal model, described by Murata as a "factory", where individuals are assigned the task of producing children? I was reminded in parts of Atwood and also Ninni Holmqvist's The Unit. More broadly, this realization of difference — experienced by both the victims and their perpetrators — allows Murata to extend her analysis to the idea of trauma — about bullying, childhood sexual abuse, and being blamed for that abuse. Read Earthlings as a criticism of Japanese conformism, as well as for the pressure put on women and couples to have children. The pace of the action is rapid, yet the tone deadpan. Regularly, the reader is forced to ask what is "normal", while having absolutely no idea what will come next in the story. 10/10.

By Sayaka Murata