Earthlings: A Novel

Sayaka Murata

Oct 2020 · Blackstone Publishing · Narrated by Nancy Wu

About this audiobook

As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. Each summer, Natsuki counts down the days until her family drives into the mountains of Nagano to visit her grandparents in their wooden house in the forest, a place that couldn’t be more different from her grey commuter town. One summer, her cousin Yuu confides to Natsuki that he is an extraterrestrial and that every night he searches the sky for the spaceship that might take him back to his home planet. Natsuki wonders if she might be an alien too.

Back in her city home, Natsuki is scolded or ignored and even preyed upon by a young teacher at her cram school. As she grows up in a hostile, violent world, she consoles herself with memories of her time with Yuu and discovers a surprisingly potent inner power. Natsuki seems forced to fit into a society she deems a “baby factory,” but even as a married woman she wonders if there is more to this world than the mundane reality everyone else seems to accept. The answers are out there, and Natsuki has the power to find them.

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.

Ratings and reviews

I saw someone in a review say that if you enjoyed the first part of the book, you won't enjoy the last part. But if you didn't enjoy the first part, you'll like the last part. I think I experienced the former. The beginning of the book had me hooked in, it was shocking and at times heart wrenching. The middle and end seemed to drag on and tbh, not much happened until the very end.

If you like the first part of this book you're not going to like the second part and if you like the second part of this book you will most likely not like the first part. The first part is an easy exploration into what it means to be human and otheness The second part expands on this by having them do batshit crazy things ending in a cannibalistic cult I love this book but I think you should read a few warnings before you buy it

About the author

Sayaka Murata is the author of many books, including Convenience Store Woman, winner of the Akutagawa Prize. Murata has been named a Freeman’s “Future of New Writing” author and a Vogue Japan Woman of the Year.

Ginny Tapley Takemori has translated works by more than a dozen Japanese writers, including Ryu Murakami. She lives at the foot of a mountain in Eastern Japan.

Nancy Wu has done voice-over animation and narrated audiobooks since 2004. A New York theater, TV, and film actor, she has won multiple Library Journal and AudioFile Earphones Awards, and recorded in studios all over the world-from Italy to Switzerland to Thailand. Narrating across genres, she is known for varied character voices and bringing stories vividly to life. Born and raised in West Virginia, she now makes her home in Boulder, Colorado, as an avid yoga practitioner and rock climber. Her television/film credits include the Law & Order franchise, All My Children, the Oscar-nominated film Frozen River, and the Nickelodeon series Three Delivery. She studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City and holds a master's degree in human rights.