A review by emergencily
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

5.0

  • An insane trip of a book. Starts out following the MC as a young girl with a troubled family life, who fantasizes about having magic powers as a means of escapism; devolves into gory self mutilating cannibalistic chaos in the last 30 pages
  • The prose is simple and matter of fact in a childlike manner while describing abject horrors — which  makes it all the more unsettling to read 
  • Chilling and heartbreaking to read about the intense violence and victimization the MC faces throughout her life as a child and as a woman, and her life long struggle to process her trauma and ensuing sense of alienation - not only from her family and from society, but from her own body and mind. She grapples with depersonalization & disassociation as her sense of autonomy and identity is under siege by outside forces — social mores, cultural expectations of conformity, patriarchal reproductive control, and coercive violence from her family
  • I think the book speaks to the messy, nasty and violent parts of victimhood & trauma… the feeling of what it means to be violated and colonized by the world in body and mind, and the desperation to reclaim any sense of self possession, even when it’s violent and taboo 
  • A ton of symbolism about reproduction, rebirth and motherhood as the trio is reborn naked & pregnant in a new world of their own making
  • The protagonist’s mantra — “Survive, whatever it takes”  — as it carried her through all she endures is one that’s going to stay with me
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