A review by alilysong
The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada

dark funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

4.0

i think i'm a pretty easy sell when it comes to satire. the approach can be obvious (which it was here) and it doesn't need to have some profound message (i'm not the kind of reader that usually takes away anything profound from what i'm ready anyways). if you just want to point at something and make fun of it and laugh for the sake of doing just that, i'm usually always game.

this was a quick, weird dystopian and satirical read that wants to take the piss out of capitalist corporate work culture (superr in vogue). i thought the length was perfect and the story beats and dialogue perfectly encapsulates the monotony, dehumanization and disillusionment of this kind of culture - that sense of being a tiny cog in a big soul sucking machine doing completely meaningless tasks for people you couldn't give two shits about. found the writing to be simple but sharp. enjoyed how the author kind of bleeds different scenes into each other - really heightened that sense of the loss of self and of the characters passing through the motions of life with zero agency. i could barely tell the characters apart.

book also had hilariously absurd depictions of inane small talk, elitism, ageism, lookism, consumerisms, all the -isms really