I’m still struggling to understand what I just read.
That ending was very full circle but also very extreme in a way.

This book tackles issues that I wasn’t aware of until reading this book.

After reading any sci-fi / dystopian story I am left wondering how close are we to this kind of thing happening in the real world & I feel like this one is a definite possibility. Which makes it a scary read almost!

It is translated well but I do feel like the original would read better in certain areas!

Another great read from Sayaka Murata which will have me thinking for a while for sure!

3.5

3.75 stars

After loving 'Convenience Store Woman' by the same author, I was really looking forward to reading Sayaka Murata’s newest novel. 'Vanishing World' definitely grabbed my attention from the start (I loved the premise and the cover). The concept of this book is super intriguing: in a future Japan, sex is considered abnormal and babies are created artificially - even men can get pregnant. We follow the main character from childhood into adulthood as she tries to figure out her own relationship with intimacy in a world where it’s basically a taboo.

I found the concept fascinating and actually enjoyed most of my reading experience. But I have to say, the ending made me really uncomfortable and I'm still not sure how to feel.

If you're thinking about picking this one up, definitely look into trigger warnings first.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Sayaka Murata has once again pushed the boundaries of fiction with Vanishing World, a book that is as unsettling as it is thought-provoking. Known for her unique exploration of societal oddities, Murata takes us on a wild ride through a speculative version of Japan where attitudes towards sex, reproduction and gender are vastly different from our own. This is a dystopian world, or perhaps a utopian one, depending on your perspective – and Murata masterfully invites readers to examine both.

At the heart of Vanishing World is Amane, a woman who grew up repulsed by the idea that her parents "copulated" to bring her into the world, as the concept of artificial insemination had become the norm by the mid-twentieth century. From a young age, Amane struggles with her own sexual identity and desires, fixating on both anime characters and real people in a way that society deems unacceptable. Her journey as an adult is marked by an awkward and sterile marriage to Saku, where sex has become so taboo it is considered akin to incest.

The real twist in the book comes when Amane and Saku move to a town called Experiment City, or Paradise-Eden, a place where children are raised communally and all individuals are considered mothers to all. In this world, men begin to carry babies in artificial wombs and children are nameless, referred to only as "Kodomo-chan." The question is whether this new society will rid Amane of her perceived "strangeness" and provide her with the freedom and acceptance she longs for.

Murata’s writing is provocative and layered. On the surface, it is a critique of contemporary Japan’s approach to gender, family and societal expectations. But beneath that, it is a deeper exploration of the ways in which non-conforming individuals are shaped – or stifled – by the systems imposed on them. The speculative nature of the book allows Murata to take risks, and though the world she builds is bizarre and challenging, it is also fascinating and eerily plausible.

The themes of Vanishing World are uncomfortable at times, particularly in how they force the reader to confront deeply ingrained societal norms. It is a bold critique of how systems of control, especially around reproduction and sexuality, shape individual identity. Amane’s search for a place where she can truly belong resonates deeply, and the ending leaves you with more questions than answers, which is exactly what makes Murata’s work so compelling.

If you're drawn to books that challenge societal norms and explore non-conformity in bold, unsettling ways, Vanishing World is a must-read. It is a strange and powerful book, full of intriguing ideas and a compelling, albeit uncomfortable, narrative that stays with you long after you've finished it.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

What did I just read? I am still full of shock and horror in all honesty. Did I enjoy it? I’m not entirely sure. Many trigger warnings for this one, do go in with caution. I love the writing style and will likely read anything by this author. The content was interesting, the haunting exploration of society, relationships and sex is definitely thought provoking, if nothing else. I’m not sure the ideas were fully developed for me personally. A book that will definitely be divisive and prompt discussion.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

Having read Earthlings back in early 2021 and Convenience Store Woman shortly after that, I have known for a long while that Murata will consistently write some of the most excellently disgusting prose of the modern era. She is exacting and brutal and willing to step into the freakish and broken in order to reflect on the world we live in. I absolutely love her writing because of the things that make most recoil. She delves into the most controversial and taboo of topics, with this one having a particular focus on incest and cheating. Murata creates such a cacophony that I can't help but see the potentiality of the world she describes as being one that could quickly come to fruition. I particularly enjoyed her decision to have our narrator end the book in such a position of inversion - Murata has spent the book setting up our narrator's fluid and ever-yielding sense of self and morals, but in reality her actions remain the same with the only changes being who her energy is directed towards, and with slight changes in direction. Her mum is the real MVP of this book, or should I say, her Mothers.

Vanishing World
by Sayaka Murata
Translated from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori
Genre: Speculative, Literary
Pages: 240
Rating: 4/5

In Vanishing World, the world that we know as of today is vanishing; there, artificial insemination is the 'natural' mode of reproduction, and sex between husband and wife is incest. With this premise at its crux, the author deftly explores the essence of institutions like marriage and family, sexual desires, love, loneliness and the need to belong and conform.

Vanishing World is supposed to be dystopian but I do not agree. In fact, it carries within it the seed of an utopian society where nothing is forced; it's the people who have chosen a particular way of life. Of course those choices are shocking for us in today's world, but have we never sighed and said: the future generation will never marry, or it's unfair that only females bears the responsibility of birth. The author has followed those sighs and materialised them into the futuristic Japan in which Vanishing World is set.

How can a society where every child has equal opportunity to thrive and be loved, and where every mother has equal opportunity to parent and shower affection, be a dystopian society.

But something still doesn't sit perfectly right—to people like us with our current world sensibility of course, but also to many characters in the novel itself. For all such people and characters, may be this novel can seem dystopian even without oppression or suffering.

Amane, the protagonist of the novel says,"... there's always a set number of people who don't really fit into society, whatever system is in place, and that percentage is always about the same."

Does Amane fit into society?

Though the novel's focus rarely ever deviates from its themes, forever forcing readers to question our current definitions and imagine a future with a different set of sensibility, Amane too hold centre stage in the story. The author has developed her character arc with brilliance, and with her, step by step, we test the water of this speculative world, often her questions mirroring our own. I would love my fellow readers to read Vanishing World because I want to discuss Amane's character arc so much, but cannot do it here without giving spoilers.

I was especially impressed by the author's analysis of people's relationship with non-human characters (anime characters). With effortless expertise she slices open this relationship, laying bare in front of readers the consumerism and economy at play in these 'pseudo-romantic' relationships.

Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman is a book with great depth of exploration, and my expectations when picking up Vanishing World was already high. But with Vanishing World, the author has surpassed all my expectations. I enjoyed almost everything in this book: the effortless world building, the story telling, the exploration of its themes and the characters. I especially loved how the book made me think so much.

I do not like how the novel ends, but that's personal. I understand why it ends so, but I am not happy about it. Of course, this doesn't affect the rating of the book.

My thanks to Netgalley and Granta Publications for granting me a free copy of this book in lieu of a honest review.

Q: Do I recommend Vanishing World to my fellow readers?

A: Absolutely Yes ❤️

Of course this didn’t disappoint, I have read all of Murata’s other works and this one is just as mind boggling as the others. I love her weird and wonderful storytelling and this left me thinking for days, highly recommend this and her other works

This book made me think, qnd I love that. While the world we were in wasn't my favourite, it was impossible to ignore it, or stop reading for that matter. Exploring sexuality, meaning of procreation, family as a both biological need and a societal norm was as much interesting as it was an uncomfortable read for me. And in this case uncomfortable is definitely a good thing, it made me reflect on my own ideas and biases.

What I didn't enjoy is that occasionally story felt purposefully hollow and gross for the shock effect of it. And I wish I didn't read that ending at all. While it serves well as a culmination of this bizarre read and our main characters journey, I still wish I didn't read those last 5% of the book.

A short, punchy and characteristically weird addition to the body of Murata’s translated works. Questioning the nature of motherhood, relationships and identity, the novel retains a deceptively playful quality, but without trivialising the nature of its enquiry.

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata is an incredibly strange and unsettling novel. Set in a dystopian future where children are conceived exclusively through artificial insemination and traditional ideas of love, family, relationships, and sex are fading into obsolescence, the book pushes the reader to question what “normal” really means - a theme that runs through much of Murata’s work. I also loved the way Murata challenges deeply ingrained social conventions, making the familiar feel alien and forcing you to reconsider assumptions you didn’t even realize you held.

That being said, I did find myself increasingly disoriented by the strangeness of the narrative and the abrupt shifts in the plot. There were moments when I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, which added to the unsettling atmosphere but also made the reading experience a little disjointed at times. Still, Murata’s writing is, as always, a joy - her prose is deceptively simple yet filled with sharp observations and an almost clinical detachment that makes the surreal feel eerily plausible. Vanishing World is disturbing, thought-provoking, and undeniably Murata.

This book is brilliant, even despite the disconcerting ending. I read it with great pleasure and loved the references to the Bible.

Although Murata typically writes about characters who are strange in both our and fictional world, this time she managed to create a heroine who could be perceived as more or less "normal" in our reality. She experiences a sexual desire, happily marries and dreams of having children.

In the story, the heroine struggled to fit into society, primarily because, unlike all other children, she was conceived through sexual intercourse. However, that's no longer considered "normal", and IVF has become the typical way to conceive a child. But also, the heroine liked to have sex, unlike the other characters in this world.

However, as the world evolves and technology advances, the heroine adapts to the new reality quickly and almost without any questions asked.

It could seem like the book was just about sex, but it's much deeper than that. Through the lens of sexual and child-conceiving norms, we explore the society and its expectations of a person who is part of this society. It makes the readers reflect on the meaning of family and marriage concepts and how different we perceive the world in comparison to the previous generations. There's a cool take on how we lose a lot of human things with the advancement of technology and how happily we welcome automation into our lives.

I had a great time with this book particularly because of a lot of subtext and a bunch of comical situations. Sayaka Murata is one of my favourite authors, and I highly recommend this book, but with caution, because such a concept may be shocking and not for everyone.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

A book about an alternative world, where social norms are evolving in such a way that our current understanding of love, family, sex, and parenthood is quickly atrophying. We follow our protagonist as she navigates these changes and being somewhat stuck in the middle - between her more traditionalist mother, on the one hand, and the modern more "sterile" world, on the other.

The story comes across as an allegory of contemporary Japan, where the more traditional interpretations of sex, relationships etc are also superseded by more "technological" mechanisms. On the one hand, it is a lament to the ways things were, and, potentially, should be. On the other hand, it is also a reluctant acceptance of the need for change, and the fact that societies must change over time. The nuanced nature of the argument presented in the book, as well as the gentleness with which it is handled (vs a potentially alternative more warlike manner) make this book stand out.

That being said, I found the book to be less than well executed. While the meta narrative and the purpose are great (despite borrowing a lot from e.g., We, Brave New World), the characters and the plot evolution felt shallow. Compared to the books it borrows from, this one feels less mature and more like a sketch. I wanted to see more drama, more emotion, and more tension. I would have loved to get more excited about what was happening. It felt a bit like the author wanted to make some intellectually important points so much that she forgot to write a good story supporting them.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

2.5 stars. Vanishing World has such an interesting and bizarre concept - a world where most people are conceived through artificial insemination, sex between married couples is considered incest, and society is moving towards collective child-rearing. Men even have artificial wombs.

I was really looking forward to this after loving Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings. The premise has so much potential, and while there are moments of interesting commentary on humanity, relationships, societal expectations of women and motherhood, and what happens when you strip away our most basic instincts, it never really goes beyond the surface. Many of the ideas are repeated without much development, and I found myself wanting more from the characters and their relationships. Amane’s fixation on anime characters could have been an interesting opportunity to explore otaku culture and the commodification of human connection in more depth, but it doesn’t really go anywhere.

The third section picks up a bit and paints a picture of a utilitarian dystopia, where everyone is a mother and the traditional family unit is dismantled. I found this to be one of the more intriguing parts of the book, and I wish it had been explored more throughout. As for the ending - it’s incredibly uncomfortable, but it lacks the impact of a typical Murata conclusion and just feels rushed and unsettling for the sake of it.

This book should be anything but underwhelming. The concept is fascinating, and I usually love Murata’s work, but ultimately I was left disappointed.

I was expecting to love this as I've devoured the rest of Murata's work that has been translated into English by Ginny Tapley Takemori but I found it lacking in comparison to her other works!

Vanishing World is yet another story from Sayaka Murata that interrogates 'normality' and is, as usual, thought-provoking. Although I find a lot of Japanese translated fiction alarmingly terse, this novel feels overwritten - the pacing is all off. Murata spends the bulk of the novel introducing the reader to this alternative reality changed by advances in artificial insemination and IVF and too little on the actual plot after Amane and her husband arrive in Experiment City. The two-thirds before this are repetitive.

The bizarre denouement - which includes a shocking turn of events that will upset many readers but which I thought was par for the course for Murata and the strongest part of the book - suffers because of this structural imbalance and the fact Murata doesn't focus enough on Amane's relationship with her mother earlier on in the book. The structure of the novel makes the ending seem rushed and the novel seem incomplete, which is a shame.

It's not a book I would recommend to someone who hasn't read her work before, or readers who were fans of Convenience Store Woman but found Earthlings uncomfortable. I enjoyed it but I won't be rushing to return to it like I will with Earthlings and Life Ceremony.

Thank you to NetGalley and Granta for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a really original story, it just went a little too 'weird' for my liking and I couldn't keep on track with the characters or the set up of this new 'world' they inhabited.

it centres around a world where babies are created artificially now - the natural way is looked on as incest! The main character, Amane, was a rare breed actually born through sex, and that has thrown her outlook on life as she tries to conform.

We follow her through childhood into adulthood, experimenting and discovering the pleasures of sex - but not with her husband! when you marry, you take on lovers, and it was weird to see the wives/husbands being so friendly towards their partners lovers! And then there are the babies - who are all raised by the community and all have the same reactions and it all just felt very alien. I also felt very uncomfortable with how the book ended so that did spoil it for me overall as I found the earlier parts of the story quite intriguing and challenging - in a good way.

"Vanishing World" by Sayaka Murata is a "Black Mirror"-esque novel set in a world in which sex as an act is slowly disappearing, yet the protagonist, Amane, is quite an exception as she was conceived in a sex-ful marriage. However, the times have since changed a lot. Sex between married couples is considered an incest and it's socially okay to fulfil one's urges and desires outside the marriage. It's also normalised to direct one's sexual interests towards fictional characters and consider them as lovers. It's almost like most of the world would have fallen on an asexual spectrum.

In this world the protagonist goes through two marriages, some sexual encounters and generally reflects a lot on the nature of desire. Then there are even newer social concepts developing that are centred on communal, clean living. When the protagonist and her husband decide to move there, the plot becomes even more "Black Mirror"-y.

Generally, I liked the concept of this novel and the world the author created. What was challenging for me, was the repetitiveness of the narrative that almost felt like efforts on filling up the space.

Very strong ending, though.

I have loved all the work from this author right up until 10 minutes ago.

This book is broken down into three sections. Society is moving in a different direction where people don't have sex anymore, if Husbands and Wives do have sex it's classed as in incest. There's no same sex marriage, if you do want a baby it's artificially insinuated with the wife's eggs and Husbands sperm (go figure), and it's common for Husbands and wife's to have serial partners and everyone is happy and OK with this.

This is one of the weirdest books I have ever read. Where people just follow the social Norms no matter what those are. It shows us that people are sheep and go with what they are being told and not by their own instinct.

I think what really killed this book was the main character having sex with a child but writing this as being the norm to connect mother and child and say it's an umbilical cord. I feel like I need to take my brain out and wash it.

Going through from reading The Convience Store Woman where I felt a connection to the author, to this, where I have no idea what this author is thinking is such a shock to me.

I can, to a point, understand what's going on here but the whole concept is so ridiculous. No. Firm no from me.

Thank you, Net galley & Granta Publications, for an Earc in exchange for an honest review

📚 Vanishing World
📖 Translated Fiction
📖 256 pages
📖 3 parts
✅️ The writing allowed the story to flow easily
❌️ The story felt partially unfinished
✅ Recommend
✅ read again
⭐ Rating: 3.75

This isn’t my first dip into Sayaka Murata’s world, and as always, she blends social commentary and societal norms with her signature oddity. If you are familiar with her work, this falls somewhere between Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings.

This book feels more like a direct commentary on the author's own views. It focuses more on societal norms around sex rather than the broader social critique found in her previous works. This approach works well with the subject matter, and it is clear this was a deliberate choice. The book is undeniably strange, and it does not try to hide it.

Murata’s writing does more than grab your attention. It holds it. The alternative world she creates is bizarre, and you find yourself wanting to spend more time figuring out how it all works. The first-person narration is particularly effective because it makes the story feel almost like a memoir, though not quite.

While I enjoyed the writing, the ending felt unfinished. I understood it, but I had to reread it a few times to check if I had missed something. I was expecting the kind of shocking conclusion Earthlings delivered, but it never came. The book simply stopped.

3.75 ⭐️

The third book I read by Sayaka Murata and I feel like this is a bit of Convinience Store Woman and Earthlings combined.

The first because the book has a lot of descriptions related to the main-character’s daily life and that sense of nothing quite happening.

The second for how disturbing the end was.

Definitely not a book I would recommend to someone who has never gotten into weird or body horror literature. I personally could not put this book down, I read it in just 2 days because Murata’s writting just causes me this eearie and restless feeling.

I do enjoy how she always creates these characters who never fit into normalcy. This was an interesting take unlike the other books I’ve read as society was already so abnormal from the start. A critique to gender rolls, family unite, sexuality and the development of human connections in our society. It was such an interesting concept for Sayaka to explore a world where sex is no longer needed in order to have children, and not only that but that a external womb is being designed so men can also be able to get pregnant.

This was very nearly a five-star read. I found the dystopian future incredibly captivating, and loved the insightful commentary around societal expectations, relationships and reproduction. Sayaka Murata always shows how it feels to be an outsider so well, creating books that are wildly disparate from our current world, whilst also being thoroughly relatable. There were so many quotes that I highlighted throughout the book because they felt so relevant to my own experiences, and was very excited to wave this book in the air as my top book of the year.

However, the last two pages brought this down to three stars for me. I’m not going to spoil the book, but the ending went too far and made this into something I can’t recommend. Maybe there was a point that I’m missing, but I just know that I really didn’t like what happened and wish those pages had been edited out.

So yeah, a book that was almost my top book of the year brought down to three stars by two distasteful pages. I’m still glad I read it because Sayaka Murata is a favourite author and the other 200 or so pages were fantastic, but I can’t help but be disappointed. I’d definitely check trigger warnings if you need to, as that was a lot.

Thank you to GrantaBooks for the NetGalley arc!