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Earthlings: A Novel Audiobook
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Publisher Description
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.
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“A critique of cultural expectations that limit what women can be and what they can do…[using] horror and science fiction to explore real-world problems.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Quotes
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“A celebration of nonconformity that is both joyous and unsettling.”
— New Yorker -
“Casts a fluorescent spell…A thrifty and offbeat exploration of what we must each leave behind to participate in the world.”
— New York Times -
“Exhilaratingly weird and funny…Unsettling and totally unpredictable.”
— The Guardian (London) -
“As intoxicating as a sake mojito…A literary prize-winner that’s also a page turner.”
— Vogue -
“This is one that should be on everyone’s wish list.”
— Japan Times -
“This eye-opening, grotesque outing isn’t to be missed.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred and boxed review) -
“Immensely charming, strange, and heart-stomping…Earthlings should be one of the main fictional events of 2020.”
— Literary Hub -
“Societally defiant, shockingly disconnected, and disturbingly satisfying.”
— Booklist -
"[A] shocking story about the consequences of nonconformity in a society with rigid expectations.”
— Shelf Awareness -
“A new statement by Murata that finding your own freedom is a struggle against family and society which takes sacrifice.”
— Books and Boo -
“I loved this book! It easily converted me to being an alien. Radical, hilarious, heartbreaking.”
— Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot -
“A gem of a book…A gift to anyone who has ever felt at odds with the world.”
— Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being
Awards
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An Amazon Editor’s Top Pick for Summer
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A Bustle Pick of Fall Books
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A Vulture.com Pick of Fall Books
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A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
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A New York Times Notable Book of 2020
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A Time Magazine Best Book of the Year
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About Sayaka Murata
Sayaka Murata is one of Japan’s most exciting contemporary writers. She herself still works part time in a convenience store, which was the inspiration to write Convenience Store Woman, her English-language debut and winner of one of Japan’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Akutagawa Prize. Her work has appeared in Freeman’s, Granta, and elsewhere.
About Nancy Wu
Nancy Wu has narrated audiobooks since 2004, winning three AudioFile Earphones Awards. A New York theater, television, and film actor, she has recorded in studios all over the world—from Italy to Switzerland to Thailand. Her credits include Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Hope & Faith, All My Children, Made for Each Other, and the Oscar-nominated film Frozen River.