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!

Weird Girl books are back and I for one, am here for it.

I love relationship dynamic books, especially when they don't follow the norm and Sayaka Murata always ALWAYS hits the nail on the head. So many people focus on the shock value and the sheer weirdness of her books but they're so nuanced. Throughout Vanishing World, there's a consistent theme of loneliness, otherness and just sadness.

This has got four stars only because I just liked some of her other books better, I don't think this is Murata at her best but it sure hits right.

A lot of people focus on the shock value of Sayaka Murata’s books, which, fair, but I feel like not a lot of focus goes to the emotional element of them? I’ve never read a Murata book that wasn’t intensely… sad. Not merely melancholy, not depressed, but wholly and completely sad in all sense of the word. Vanishing World is also immensely sad as it grapples with the question at the core of our existence: what is family? How do our sexual desires separate – or group us with – other mammals, other animals? What is the next stage of our evolution as humans?

How is sex regarded in a sexless society, when a some of it is already considered taboo in our world? It’s deep and detached. Innocent and somehow, not at all erotic? It’s shocking and uncomfortable but also deeply philosophical.

Ultimately I think her books are explorations of loneliness and human behaviour attributed through the feminine lens and they always, to me, feel deeply moving and very personal, especially when it comes to ideas on womanhood and a woman’s use in society. They are bizarre but always familiar, intense but always engaging. I read this in the space of one evening and feel a disturbed and a little sad. But very much going away from this book with a lot of thoughts.

This was high on my wishlist of books as I really liked Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. I knew to prepare for weirdness. Amane has been conceived naturally unlike the other children she knows who are all conceived by artificial insemination. Their parents don't have sex unless it is with lovers outside the marriage. Amane grows up and wants to find a love match despite societal norms. Amane wants to have a child but her husband also wants to conceive and carry a child himself. They have read about an experiment town where this is possible for anyone regardless of gender. However, they find that in this town all the children look identical, everyone lives alone and is called "mother," the children are raised in daycare and anyone can play with any child or care for them as all babies belong to the community. I loved this world building but I found the book dragged in the middle, I found 10 year old Amane's sexual experiences disturbing and not realistic. As the book progressed to the end there was a lot more that was disturbing. It certainly is thought provoking.

Even though I’ve had Earthlings sitting on my shelf for a while, this was my first dive into Murata’s bizarre world. The speculative future she creates is definitely intriguing—it raises thought-provoking questions about societal norms surrounding sex, love, and marriage. But while the concept itself is compelling, the writing never really delves deep enough to explore these ideas in a meaningful way.

As much as I enjoyed the dystopian setting, the actual storytelling felt weak. The protagonist comes across as flat, and her dialogue and actions rarely feel natural or believable. The novel is short, so it’s still worth a read if the premise interests you, but overall, it left me wanting more substance beneath the strangeness.

Thank you Granta for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was as weird and unsettling as what is becoming a Murata trademark. At times i had to pause reading to stare at the wall.. Amane is an easy and likeable character that makes adjusting to this strange dystopian world possible. While there seems to be little plot, this explores sex, relationships, families and parenthood. I'm aware some of this is a commentary on the current state of Japanese declining birth rates and the increase of non-daters, this was not necessarily shoved directly in the face of the reader. But once you know you can see it's impact on the themes.
I actually really enjoyed this little book and while it probably won't be for everyone, it's defintely a book that will get people talking.

2.25*
I have read 'Earthlings' and 'Convenience Store Woman' by Sayaka Murata so was excited to be given the chance to read 'Vanishing World'. I was intrigued by the concept as I have never read anything with a similar story line before. Whilst I enjoyed Part 1 and the initial set up, I did find it to be quite slow paced and the plot didn't really develop. The ending left me with mixed feelings and it made me feel quite uncomfortable and it could have been done in a different way. On the whole I enjoyed reading 'Vanishing World' but I can't get past the ending which is what made me rate it quite low.

Vanishing World is the new novel by Sayaka Murata, exploring a world in which family, love, sex, and parenting have changed. Amane grows up feeling like an outsider because her parents actually fell in love and conceived her, rather than everyone else who were conceived by artificial insemination and brought up by parents in "clean" marriages that made them a family. Romantic love is for outside of the family, either with real life people or fictional characters, and sex becomes less and less common. Amane grows up, has both real life and character lovers, and finds a husband in the societally acceptable way, but then her husband wants to move to Experiment City, where they are trialling a new utopian idea where all children are raised equally and people are inseminated simultaneously, so that he might carry a child using a new artificial womb.

After Earthlings, it isn't surprising that this book is weird, pushing different ideas about love, sex, and family to various limits to explore convention and how easily things can change. The story itself is simple, following Amane as she grows up, tests what love and sex mean to her, and then ultimately ends up in Experiment City seeing a very different version of society. There's a lot of interesting things about the world Murata has created (indeed, both worlds), from the obsession with the heterosexual nuclear family and the "uncleanliness" of sex going hand in hand in the ordinary world to the extreme off getting rid of family as well, but still revering the idea of bearing children. Fears about birth rates mix with conservative ideas around sex, showing how these things come into conflict even in a space in which people want to believe both, and generally this book feels like it might read quite different in and outside of Japan.

I'd say the start and the end are perhaps most impactful, and also the parts most likely to put people off, with the middle being slower and more conventional. Like with Earthlings, the ending ramps up the weirdness, pushing some its ideas to the limits whilst not coming to any kinds of conclusions. Vanishing World is the sort of book that throws a lot of ideas at you, and I think for some people those ideas might unsettle, for others they won't really go far enough to say anything, and then there's people who already live outside of some of the conventions explored through these ideas, for whom it can feel like a quaint novelty (such as queer people, who are explicitly not part of the world of the novel in which marriage still must be between a man and a woman even when artificial insemination is the norm). The novel itself was a gripping read, but I think ideas-wise it sometimes gets lost, almost encouraging people to have the kinds of disgust that also seem to be satirised through the characters.

Review: Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata 👶🏼👀 😥

Will you be picking this one up?

Vanishing World was on my most anticipated releases of 2025 because I am a massive Murata fan and love an unsettling commentary on societal norms.

Vanishing World confronts and redefines our view and expectations around relationships, family, fertility, intimacy in a weird and disturbing way. In true Murata style she addresses these taboo topics with twists that shock (i’m still recovering).

but WTF was that ending?! (with Murata it’s to be expected but this was on another level)

In this book we are introduced to a sex-less dystopian future where children are only conceived through artificial insemination, and marriages are formed purely to create a family unit to raise kids. There’s an experiment city where they are making progress on male pregnancies and it is frowned upon to do it alone, or with a same-sex partner.

Amane, our protagonist, is unique in that she craves physical intimacy within relationships and is seen as weird. Eventually she marries, and her husband wants them both to have a child so they move to experiment city where they both fall pregnant. This city is SO strange, as children all look identical and are brought up by everyone in the community (who are referred to as Mother) - it’s super creepy.

I was intrigued and hooked till that point, and really enjoyed reading and exploring this concept, but I just can’t get away from the ending which for met let it down. There are many many uncomfortable moments in this book - some related to parasocial relationships with characters, and others which were just weird 😆

I’m still low-key shaken by it and my thoughts are still all over the place. The ending of Vanishing World pushes the boundaries further than Earthlings and the last few pages have me so conflicted that I still don’t have a finished rating for this one. This is also a warning to check out the TWs before picking this up.

She will still be an auto-buy author for me as noone but her could manage to write these bizarre books lol but Earthlings and Convenience Store Women will always be my favourite. I love her blunt writing stytle and reading about things that leave a sour taste in your mouth.

I confidently say, if you know Sayaka Murata already, then fret not to just blindly go and read whatever will be published next. Murata manages it to lure you in with a likeable character, just to throw you into a world that leaves a strange after taste. I really like books like this, eventho they are short, they manage to make you rethink everything you read and thought you understood.
I think that makes Murata unique and I hope more and more people will read her books.

The type of book I would recommend people to go into blind. I’d trust Murata to put anything into my hands at this point, and be confident in knowing that it will be alien, intriguing, and new. Embrace the weird and uncomfortable, and expect to be left with a sour taste in your mouth.

A piece of speculative fiction that critiques gender expectations, the “modern” family unit, and the role sexuality plays, not just in our relationships, but in the way we structure society as a whole. Parallel to this is commentary on humanity’s increasing physical isolation, and its impact on our engagement with media — the development of amorphous yet powerful parasocial relationships with the distant or fictional. All the while, the animal needs for connection and reproduction assert themselves as inconvenient and distasteful necessities.

If Murata will do anything, it’s write a compelling, bizarre main character. In this case, Amane generally holds to modern sensibilities, but within the world Murata creates, readers will also begin to question her choices as immoral or perverse.

Short and sharp, in just 130 pages <i>Vanishing World</i> accomplishes the creation of a eerie, harrowing, and somewhat believable vision of a future in which what makes us human is slowly, but surely, vanishing.

A warm thank you to Granta Publications and NetGalley for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy of this book for an honest review.

Sayaka Murata is back with her signature satirical and grotesque fiction that seems like it's right on the edge of reality.
While I usually really enjoy her writing, this one was not my favourite. About a dystopia that honors 'clean' reproduction and decenters sex and family, this had a really unique perspective on society's role in family structure. Reading this how quickly even the most well-intentioned people will cave at a seemingly harmless societal change; Murata is excellent at showing instead of telling, and one thing I always enjoy in her writing is how the protagonist/narrator has a slipping sense of saneness that reflects their descent into conformity or instability by the end of the book. This is really well written overall; it just wasn't the one for me, and I would advise reading the trigger warnings if you intend to read this.

I finished Vanishing World yesterday, and I’m still struggling to gather my thoughts on this one—it’s a tough one to review.
In a nutshell, this is a futuristic dystopia where sex between a married couple is considered incest, lovers are universally accepted, all babies are conceived via artificial insemination, and experimental cities are being developed where anyone, regardless of gender, can be artificially inseminated. In these cities, everyone lives alone, babies belong to and are raised by the entire community, everyone is a "Mother," and you can play with or care for any child (all with similar haircuts, all referred to as "Kodomo-chan"), almost like a surreal version of a "cat café."
The premise sounded intriguing, and it definitely delivered on a thought-provoking level—though at times, it was a bit too unsettling. Unfortunately, it also felt repetitive, especially in the middle section. The protagonist's thoughts are explored over and over again, and she has the same conversations repeatedly with different characters. I wish other themes had been touched upon occasionally, but everything really revolves around sex, artificial insemination, and these new forms of relationships.
The ending is deeply disturbing and unsettling—I had seen this mentioned in other reviews, but I never could have predicted just how far it would go. Yes, it made me worry about the future and the societal changes we can’t yet foresee. Yes, I understand it’s meant to be shocking to drive its point home. But for me, it was a bit TOO much, and the repetition of the same ideas started to wear on me.
That said, the book—especially that ending—will be living rent-free in my head for a while. 😬 If you want to know why… well, give it a go! 😅

Really couldn't get it to it at all. I thought about not finishing it but I persevered, however it just was too weird for me as a story concept. I was disappointed as I'd loved Convenience Store Woman and Life Ceremony. Some of it was a good idea, but I wish it leant more in the dystopian / artificial insemination side rather than starting with a school girl talking about sex etc. it just didn't feel right to read somehow? It felt flat and repetitive in some parts also.
It's really hard to explain, but I didn't enjoy this, but other people did so maybe it just wasn't for me.