Well, if you've read any Sayaka Murata before, you know that "weird" is the baseline . This was pretty weird. At first I thought the comparison to the declining birth rates and voluntary celibacy in modern Japan were too obvious, but as the story progressed through time it really got me thinking about "normal" and what that means, and how much of itnis shaped by what society dictates "normal" is. Sayaka Murata laid out a potential slippery slope for the future, and the ending pushed the logic to the most extreme conclusion, as she often does. I dont think its as shocking as say, Earthlings, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Thank you to Netgalley and Granta publications for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A weird novel about a world where sexual relationships are not needed anymore. A very near future however with huge changes to what we know. Can be read as an alternate history story where the world, specially japan, diverted from the rest of the world. The novel raises questions about being a parent, about relationships, social experiments and much more. Really enjoyed this one!

I’m saddened by this rating because I love weird dystopia as a genre, and I’m deeply invested into any media discussing the sociological impact of tech advancement and how customs, relationship dynamics and roles evolve with it - especially with Japan experiencing these shifts in real time - but I really, really, did not find the execution enjoyable nor the story fleshed out enough to be this long, and this book was so short. Repetitive to an extreme level and oddly juvenile in its exposition, I really wish it would have done something else with the concept at its core than just making me read the word “family” multiple times per paragraph per page or spoon-feeding me the author’s intentions for this story. And that ending? Questionable if not problematic, at best.

I leave this book hoping to find a work of fiction able to give justice and the exploration its premises deserved somewhere else.

I’m not discouraged to pick up from this author’s bibliography again in the future, but this one was a no for me.

Rated 1.5 stars.

I've read a couple of Sayaka Murata books in the past, and while for the most part I thought they were interesting they often veer into the weird and nonsensical. Vanishing World follows this same trend, with a story that looks at a mix of technology, societal pressures, gender roles and sex. And it's an odd read. Both in plot and pacing. For a short book this took me a while to get through, and while I thought the themes were thought provoking and timely, I just found the execution to be rather clinical and devoid of deeper emotional depth. Amane just felt a little disconnected, as though she was solely focused on sex and sex alone, which made it difficult to connect with her.

Some thoughtful observations, but I think this was just a little bit too odd for a basic girl like me.

"Nobody knows what makes family different from strangers anymore. In reality, we’re already lost.”

After having read "The Convenience Store Woman", which I can only refer to as a strangely odd but enticing read, I was pleased to hear that Murata would be returning with a new release this year, and I was looking forward to another odd tale.

In Vanishing World, we are introduced to our protagonist, Amane. Amane finds comfort in her other-worldly lovers (anime characters) & her real life lovers, but when it comes to her husband, he is simply family & refuses to engage in inc*st with her husband. Yes, you read that right. In this new era, the act of copulation has phased out, along with the original notion of family. With pregnancies only taking place via insemination, the concept of family had 'evolved'. In other words, the world as we currently know it had begun to disappear.

This book was really strange, if 10 is the peak, this book was 100. As odd as it was, I did like the reflections on the themes.

It did make me question the core reasons why many of us strive to create a family. Is it due to family expectation? Conditioning from society? This story also includes an experimental city where both men & women are eligible for pregnancy, however the children post birth belong to the city, where they are treated by The Mother's equally. I found this aspect really interesting, as it made me think of "it takes a village to raise a child." And how beneficial it may be for children to be loved by all.

There were lots of other key take aways in regards to maternal expectations, love & just, hyper sexuality, marriage & relationships.

Despite this book being quite a short read, it felt as though the middle of the book could have been the ending. I would have much preferred that, as the ending was very disturbing.

Overall, this was an interestingly odd read. Would I recommend, only if you are used to strange fiction.

Vanishing World is a story set in a near-future where sex has become disgusting to most people and children are almost all created by artificial insemination.

It’s all very strange and yet internally consistent and believable. Lots of food for thought here as well as an interesting story.

This was 4⭐ until the very ending, where it dropped to 1⭐. It didn't need to happen, for the whole book was already disturbing and I feel like it took away from the meaningful commentary and made it too... shocking? I don't even know how to describe it.

After "Convenience Store Woman" and "Earthlings" my expectations were very high, but unfortunately "Vanishing World" didn't live up to them. I will be looking to read Murata's next book after how much I liked these two, but this particular title dimmed down my enthusiasm.

Thank you to NetGalley, Granta Publications and Sayaka Murata for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I understand the commentary about the declining birth rate and the politics it triggers, where women are treated as incubators and expected to do their duty and procreate, even when the conditions don't encourage it. But I didn't really enjoy the book overall, I thought it lacked subtlety and I didn't feel particularly invested in the lives of the characters. It just wasn't for me.

Free copy sent by Netgalley.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Vanishing World centres a version of post-WW2 society where humans no longer have sex to procreate; instead, artifical insemination is used. This creates a society where people's sexual and romantic desires are satisfied using 'consumables' - fictional characters from media - or (rarely) other humans. Due to the separation of sex from reproduction, families (specifically, a husband and wife) have become strictly platonic.

Set in Japan, the story follows our main character Amane, who is among the last humans to be concieved via. sexual intercourse (or, as referred to in the book, copulation), as she navigates the new norms of society. The story is split into three parts which follow her sexual exploration from childhood to adulthood and finally, her departure from platonic-family life into the new 'Experiment City'.

While the first two acts had interesting ideas exploring sexuality and what it means to be a family, it ultimately fell short for me. This book was written with clinical indifference and was moved forward by our main character's the inner monologue and her conversations with the people around her. Much of this prose felt incredily repetitive while lacking much-needed depth.

The third act was more eventful, as it followed Amane's move into Experiment City. This city operates on a different societal structure, where its residents are artificially inseminated and carry children for humankind. These children, called Kodomo-chans, are then raised by the Centre and doted on by the community, called the Mothers. In this city, men can be fitted with artificial wombs to carry children as well. Explorations of gender and what it means to be normal in an ever-changing society were interesting, but once again, lacked depth. The book ended in a way that I found incredibly grotesque, with plot points that did not make sense in the context of who our characters are.

Incredibly interesting concept, with surface-level critiques of how our society treats gender, sexuality, and the concept of family. Though it was not for me, I can see this book being enjoyed by many readers, especially if they are new to the themes explored in this book.

If you read both of Muratas novels, I can tell you to expect more Earthlings than Convenience Store Woman. If you read only the latter, oh boy do I have news for you.

Murata’s mind is one of a kind. She is able to pack here commentary on social isolation, the dangerous rise of technology, parasocial relationships with fictional characters, distorted views on love and family structure and one topic that is present in all of her novels: conforming to society’s view of what is “normal”.

Normality is the creepiest madness there is. This was all insane, yet it was so right.

— Sayaka Murata

We follow Amane and her attempt to not conform to such a soulless society where babies are basically conceived like products in a factory and people are forgetting how to fall in love with real human beings.

Murata’s writing and the translation are both approachable and fluid. I found the book easy to pick up and got quickly gripped by the dystopian Japan she imagined.

I strongly recommend this book to lovers of sci-fi, weird books and people who might be on the fence about Sayaka Murata’s books

This is my third novel by Sayaka Murata, and once again, I wasn’t disappointed. Quite the opposite, actually — I was shocked and, in a strange way, completely captivated. Murata's books always make you think…

The story follows Amane, who learns at the age of ten that she wasn’t born like other children her age. Her parents broke a serious rule — they had sex. In a world where sexual relationships are taboo and children are only conceived through artificial insemination, Amane struggles to find her place. Forming relationships and getting married is considered normal, but physical intimacy between spouses is not. Since all members of a family are considered relatives, any sexual act within the family is labeled incest. On the other hand, having lovers, boyfriends, or girlfriends outside the marriage is not only acceptable but in some cases even expected. A “complete” relationship requires non-family members to fulfill the physical side of things.

When Amane and her second husband hear about Eden — an experimental city where people of all genders are randomly selected and artificially impregnated in large numbers — they decide to take a leap and move there, hoping to finally feel like they belong. But is this really the answer Amane has been looking for?

Welcome to a futuristic utopia that, despite its strangeness, doesn’t feel entirely far-fetched. Amane lives in a society where population control is constant. As soon as children and teens reach reproductive maturity, they’re fitted with devices to prevent fertility. Nobody is allowed to conceive a child naturally. Sex is taboo, artificial insemination is the only way. It’s impossible not to ask: Why? Why is such extreme control necessary? Why can’t people enjoy physical closeness in their relationships? Marriages are formed purely for financial support — nothing more. Only opposite-sex marriages are permitted, though oddly, women are allowed to live communally and raise children together. A strange system that veers both right and left in conflicting ways.

But life in Eden is something else entirely. Scientists have developed a way for men to carry children as well, using an external womb surgically attached to the abdomen. And it works. Amane’s husband becomes the first man to carry a pregnancy to term and deliver a healthy baby. Amane’s own pregnancy ends early in the first month. But even that’s not the weirdest part of Eden.

In this city, all adults are referred to as "Mothers" — regardless of gender — and all children are considered children of everyone. There’s no such thing as your child — only ours. After birth, the babies are taken away, and no one ever knows who their biological parents are. And in Eden, that’s completely normal. It resembles a kind of cult, where intense brainwashing blurs all sense of individual identity and transforms everyone into one collective being.

I’ll be honest — every new twist in this story shocked and surprised me. Why? Because on the one hand, it all sounds utterly absurd, but on the other… if you really stop and think about it, it’s not completely unthinkable. When you grow up with certain social models, it’s hard to accept something radically different. But for me, the problem isn’t with the models themselves — it’s in the question: Why are they needed in the first place? Why create a mindset like this? Why erase names, personal bonds, and close contact? Where is this supposed to take humanity? What’s the point of it all?

Once again, Murata delivers a masterfully written, brilliantly constructed story that hits like a bucket of cold water. It wakes you up, shakes you out of your comfort zone. This is the kind of book that’s just begging to be discussed and analyzed. It raises countless questions, and many of them are left open — and I liked that. It gives the reader room to think and reflect. 😊

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Granta Publications for this thought-provoking reading experience!

Vanishing World follows Amane trying to navigate through a world where sexual reproduction is a thing of the past and instead humans are now artificial inseminated. I think the power of Murata's fiction is in the shock factor and the unknown, so I will not explain the plot any further.

This book felt typical of Murata's weird and unique style! There were vivid grotesque moments which have been visually ingrained into my brain in a way many books struggle to do - in a good way. If you enjoyed her other books, or like the shockingly weird, you should read this. However, it is impossible to not compare this to Earthlings, and Earthlings remains unbeatable! That being said, it is a great book and will stay with me for a while.

Personally, I knew going into this that it would be a Rea book, and it did not disappoint. I love the disturbing and weird worlds Murata creates while critiquing society in an entertaining and funny way. I was entertained and devoured the books so quickly! My only critism is that the plot structure is similar to her other work in the way that we know what to expect in the final third, it is still shocking but if you know her work you know how the plot might advance. Still it was one of the most entertaining books I have read this year and I give it 4.5 stars.

What if all human conception was made by artificial insemination? That is the first question that Sayaka Murata's Vanishing World explores, but is far from the last one. Where other dystopias (or utopias) sometimes fail is after the author has an idea for an interesting concept, it becomes that universe's only concern. What I believe makes this book succeed is that family, marriage and children are already a huge part of our society, it dominates media, daily conversations, financial planning, it is integral to our concept of what a human is. When you take the idea that sex is a sin and that it is no longer necessary because it doesn't fulfill a purpose, every other belief starts to come crashing down. The story follows our protagonist from when she is a teenager until she is around forty. This allowed the universe to evolve around her, which is one of my favorite aspects of this story. The reader doesn't enter an already completely unrecognizable world and follows a main character that starts to think like we do, not at all. As the world changes, she adapts and adapts. The only immutable character is her mother, a reminiscence of the world we know, which our main character resists constantly. While reading, I couldn't help but keep asking myself, what would happen if there was no such thing as family? Would we be happier if we were always alone but never lonely? What if we were completely interchangeable? I love a book that makes me think constantly and this one completely succeeds in that regard while being very entertaining. (It loses one star because I really can't find it in me to defend the ending)

From the author of Convenience Store Woman, comes an interesting tale of a world in which artificial insemination has replaced normal child bearing. We follow Amane who is navigating this strange new world, whilst still having feelings connected to the old.

This has been superbly written by Sayaka Murata and translated wonderfully by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

I loved how the story flowed and found it to be unputdownable. Amane was quite relatable even though she was living in a world quite unlike our own. I liked how the novel was broken into three parts, each one being a different development in Amane's story. At times the story was funny, heart warming, and sometimes scary in its presentation of this new way of being.

Some themes covered will not be to everyone's taste, and i would advise caution for some readers who may be affected by some aspects of the story. However i found the honesty in which the themes were presented to be refreshing. My only complaint is that I wish the novel had been longer.

Over all a very enjoyable novel, it has been a pleasure to read it, and I am eagerly anticipating the next offering from this author. I would highly recommend this to fans of dystopian fiction.

Actually 3,5* but closer to 4.

Last year I read Convenience Store Woman and absolutely loved it. And because of that, I had really high expectations from Vanishing World. Unfortunately, they weren't met. It's not that this book is bad, it just seems underdeveloped.

Vanishing World focusses on Amane, a young girl who learns that her parents created her in an unusual way - by having sex. In Amane's world, children are created via artifical insemination, and since there's no need for sex, people just don't do it. The need for love is satisfied by fictional characters and being physical with your spouse is treated as incest.

We follow Amane in this world from her first sexual contact, through first and second marriage, few lovers, to living in a city where children are raised by the community and families don't exist. And my problem with the book is the lack of a bigger perspective. We focus only on Amane and people close to her and their different points of views. It's fascinating, but I wish we could know more about why the world evolved in this way. Also, her indifference to some things gets annoying at times.

I understand and admire the book as a commentary on fan culture, sexuality and families, but it's missing something more.

DNF @ 30%

Unfortunately, as much as I hate to do it I’ve had to dnf ‘Vanishing world’. I just couldn’t get into the book as hard as I tried. I absolutely loved Sayaka’s ‘Convenience Store Woman’ so I thought I’d also enjoy this one too; but for the time being I’m going to leave it where I left off with the hopes to give it another go in the future. I am not dignifying this with an official rating as it doesn’t seem fair to do so at this moment in time.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publishers for an advance copy of this book.

Strapped in for another wild Murata ride!

Amane finds out when she’s 10 that she was conceived the traditional way. Instead of the new way which is artificial insemination. People are NOT shagging anymore.

Husbands & wives view each other as siblings not lovers. They are not in love. the very idea of marital sex is akin to incest. Things are odd!

I read this in a day. Flew through it! I just wanted to know what kooky thing was coming next. And I had a great time. Yes it’s weird & ends up weird but like… of course it is? That’s what we’re all here for! One of the weirdest parts of Murata’s writing for me is the dialogue because it all reads quite childish? And it’s juxtaposed with some real crazy plot. Mad. Anyway, it’s a yes from me.

I received a proof copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Having read Sayaka Murata's quirky and fascinating Convenience Store Women, I was keen to give her latest novel a try. This is quite a different story, falling into science fiction. This is set in a world where human reproduction only happens through artificial insemination, and sex is a dying act. Married couples act as though siblings, who you must never fall in love with or you'll be accused of incest. Falling in love with people from the other world (fictional people, usually anime characters) is considered more normal then loving other human beings and spouses happily send their husband or wife off on dates with girlfriends or boyfriends. Meanwhile, the concept of family is also being undermined.

Our protagonist is one of the few people who still has sex and longs for a family but can she think outside the constraints of society or will she succumb to the cold new norm? This is a really interesting book but very strange and the changes in society are quite unnerving.

Very thought provoking and disturbing, the horror and implications of this gradually escalate over the course of the book until it feels like a gut punch. There is a lot to consider packed into less than 250 pages, I read this in one sitting because once I started I just couldn't put it down.

Sayaka Murata can do no wrong — this is an amazing study on the societal norms around love, relationships and family

First published in 2015 in Japanese, Vanishing World appears for the first time in English ten years later, and it still feels cutting-edge. The book centres around Amane, who lives in a future in which people don't really have sex anymore, either to procreate or for their enjoyment —it's viewed as an old-fashioned and unhygienic practice. A married couple sees each other as family, like a sibling, for example, so it's unthinkable to have sexual relations with them, if someone were to have any still, as insemination is the standard way to procreate. Amane, however, has always known she's different, starting with the way she was conceived — through sexual relations between her mother and father — but also with her persistent curiosity about copulation. She has always held a more old-fashioned mindset when it comes to these matters, even if it feels uncomfortable in relation to the societal norms of her time.

Vanishing World pushes the boundaries over and over again of how we think about family, love and whether there could be other ways of thinking about these ideas.

This one definitely sits closer to Earthlings in the Sayaka Murata spectrum, so be prepared to be challenged in a big way. That said, it's an incredibly eye-opening exploration of topics which are sold to us as natural and innate — but which are, in fact, socially constructed and, as Sayaka Murata aims to show us with this book, could be undone and reinvented. I will say I was quite surprised by the ending; I suspect it will divide a lot of readers. I am still not quite sure how I feel about it myself.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: I'll read anything Sayaka Murata writes. I am a huge fan of her work and how she continues to challenge what our society deems as "normal", implicit norms that perhaps we don't even realise are there until she points it out.

Huge thanks to Granta and NetGalley for my e-ARC, proof and finished copy!