2.5 stars
What did I just read?? This was clearly supposed to be a commentary on loneliness and the future of society, but it felt unfinished and underwhelming in parts. I enjoyed Amane as a character but her actions were confusing and cruel at certain points. Part One and Two were slow and boring to read, whereas Part Three was almost overwhelming with information and plot points. It just fell short for me. The idea was there and I could see what Murata was trying to say, but it wasn’t developed enough.

We follow Amane from earlier in her life and throughout her adulthood. Set in a society where sex and romance have almost completely vanished, artificial insemination is the norm, we get glimpses about how this society functions, but never delve much into it.
This is a well-written and translated book and a quick read.
The dialogue flows very well.
To be fair, I did not fully grasp the satire and any underlying layers fully, and instead felt like it needed more plot, more details, a more nuanced touch (judging by what Amane communicates with us is the societal messages).
I am keen on reading more by Murata.

Enjoyed this more than I thought I would. It forces you to question your own moral and ethical boundaries, that's for sure.

Vanishing World is one of those books that challenges everything from societal norms to human instincts, and makes us question ideas about love, reproduction, and relationships. Sayaka Murata isn’t afraid to push boundaries, and the result is both unsettling and fascinating, like a never-ending debate about modern society turned into a novel. Even though the world in this book feels extreme, it reflects real issues, especially how human relationships are changing. This story doesn’t give clear answers, but it forces you to ask yourself: Are my choices really mine, or have I just been conditioned to accept certain things as normal? Whether you agree with its ideas or not, Vanishing World is the kind of relatively short book that brings up a lot of topics to be discussed.

This book examines how far people will go to conform to, what they are told, are social norms. How far will they take themselves out their own comfort zones. I enjoyed that within the book beliefs were constantly questioned, either within conversation or by the narrator, Even if people almost always conceded to follow the party line.

Narrated by Amane we explore a world where sex, especially for reproduction, is almost extinct. Instead people fall in love with anime characters and have children through artificial inseminations. However, Amane is an outlier. She still falls in love with real people and still has sexual desires. We follow her from childhood to her late 30s as her feelings towards sex, love, and family life evolve and change. We follow her experience struggling to remain within social norms and the fall out on her relationships.

Like most of Murata's books this examines what is normal, what is natural, and why we believe these things. And like most of her books, this is an uncomfortable read, it makes you squirm and ask 'what on earth is going on'.

An interesting side question raised is how many rituals of love are simply driven by capitalism and how the state benefits from, and controls, our emotions and desires. It also explores parasocial relationships and how these create isolation.

Sayaka Murata is an auto-buy for me but I always have to wait a couple of days to put into words how I feel about her books after reading.
Vanishing world is expectedly weird, although it is clear it is the norm for the characters. It does give rise to questions as to whether this would happen and the consequences of this.
I couldn't put it down for want of knowing what would happen to the world and characters. I would definitely recommend for anyone who likes strange and dark fiction.

I was SO excited to be given an ARC of this, as Sayaka is one of my favourite authors and i’m so glad to say she didn’t disappoint once again. This might just be the weirdest, most unsettling book of hers i’ve read and I loved every minute of it.

Whilst this novel appears to be quite explicit it does make a very valid point about the future of humankind. Twenty years ago I’d have put this down as a great sci-fi read but with the way the world is going I’d say this is going to be a reality, but hopefully not in my lifetime.

The protagonist, Amane, was conceived naturally, and her Mother never let her forget it. The new way of giving life was all very controlled and done by artificial insemination, with no love and intimacy between people but for purposely raising children, known as Kodomo-chan, to be almost identical and perfect. Amane was conflicted by this, being conceived ‘the old way’ and with her peers only knowing ‘the new way’.

Very interesting read, but the last part with the grown up(?) Kodomo-chan was somewhat unsettling. The general concept is unnerving, the end of human emotional bonds and cold, clinical, science being the future.

Murata has a broad spectrum of imagination which I appreciate.

"'The concept of family doesn't exist in that world, does it? Before long the effect of the forbidden fruit will wear off and humans will end up returning to paradise.' I murmured, although I didn't really believe it. 'Sex aside, can society really function well without family.'"

Imagine a world where your very creation is controlled - where falling in love or having sex isn’t how you’re supposed to have children. Where after the loss of countless men during world war 2, we turned to artificial reproduction and never went back, not just losing sex but romance and love eventually, too. Welcome to Amane’s world, one where she is the anomaly for being conceived by two people in love. In fact, love is something entirely novel, not something that should interfere with marriage or family. It's an alternative universe where we're still shaming the way people live and start families, controlling their bodies, but from another angle.

Murata has created another vivid, feverish universe — one unsettling in it’s beautiful exterior but with a dark underbelly, where women get automatically given implants when they start their period so they can never have a child the unapproved way and people associate love with fictional characters but never people. At points sex between husband and wife is even considered incestual, because you’re family - offering this jarring reality where people have been so slowly worn down and warped that even basic love is stripped away from us and sex has become something strange. Women can’t marry each other because men can’t create children alone, marriage becomes a job, sex becomes dirty and love becomes a commercialised hobby. Watching as a young Amane tries to understand sex was deeply uncomfortable, but it painted a world that’s possible when we try so hard to control and alienate people that everything becomes distorted.

When we meet this new experimental society, built in the ghost of Amane’s old hometown, has a dangerous kind of allure. Children raised by communities, men given the chance to grow their own children, but adults with no control over if they get chosen to reproduce, no concept of family or partnership, children being reduced to nameless livestock with no need for human connection.

There’s something about this authors writing that flows in such a satisfying way, dreamlike, smooth, almost ethereal in its prose. The jarring discomfort of such strange words being delivered in a bright, beautiful way. It played with the concepts of morality, coercion, normality in a clever way. However as much as I've loved Murata's work in the past for it's bold strangeness, it almost feels like it's odd for oddness sake.

At times this story just felt repetitive, consistently elaborating on the same ideologies and metaphors and I’ll be honest, the ending just left me feeling quite sick and I hope there was some deeper purpose behind it but in my opinion, there were plenty of other ways to create the metaphors and meanings she portrayed than weren’t the ones she chose. The whole thing left a very bitter taste in my mouth and ruined what was at the start a brilliantly subversive social commentary and speculative tale.

⭐⭐

5/5 🌟

Once again I absolutely loved another of Sayaka Murata's books. This was a fairly short read, focused on Amane who is growing up in a world where babies are conceived by artificial insemination, and marriage is sexless and mostly loveless. All while husbands and wives have lovers outside of the martial home. Conceiving via sexual intercourse is considered dirty, and the world has changed massively in terms of relationships and the definition of family. As usual Sayaka touches upon things happening in the real world (same sex marriages, modern youth culture, platonic relationships and chosen family) in her unique way and leaves you reading such an intriguing story that you'll end up devouring it over 1-2 sittings. I found myself questioning my own relationships with friends and family, and had a think about what the future might hold. Not only this but the book is full of loveable characters, funny moments, and thought provoking feelings.

Immediately into my top books of all time. Cannot wait to reread this one!

Vanishing World encompasses all the traits I've come to expect from a Murata novel in the most mind-bendingly delicious way imaginable. I found it absorbing and unnerving in equal measure, and overall thought it was great.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Sayaka Murata always surprises me. Her every book is very different from what I imagine it will be. I have mixed feelings about this but I liked the world she created where many things considered normal in our world are considered 'not right'. It is a book about love, sex, the lack of sex and norms

Well this makes a change, I feel like all I’ve done recently is read average translated fiction, however this was a master stroke! A fantastic fantasy/sci-fi take on some bigger issues that a lot of people wish could happen! I mean pregnant men!!! What a delight! It wasn’t until I finished that all of what happened really dawned on me. This will make a good recommendation for someone looking for something different

Having read Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, I was expecting weird, and weird is what I got. I was intrigued by the premise; is sex fading out of existence with the normalisation of artificial insemination, and how does that effect relationships?
I actually found this read more engaging than the other two, it was quite dystopian but in a literary way, and it made the drastic changes feel normalised. This skill is definitely one the author succeeds in.
The ending was slightly jarring, everything somehow ramped up by 250% in the last few pages, but it has definitely left an impression.

You can definitely tell that this is one of Murata's earlier works as it doesn't quite live up to Convenience Store Woman or Earthlings, but it still has that very distinct and weird Murata feel to it in how there is a sense of detachment and eeriness in the world you are reading about. She plays around with gender and gender roles so much with this one that it can sometimes border the line of ridiculous, but in doing this she exposes the rigid societal boundaries that have been seen in Japan and in breaking them down it becomes apparent how alien this 'new world' feels to us.

The book did feel as though it lost a bit of focus as it went on and it seemed to go off onto a lot of tangents - perhaps it was trying to say too much and would have felt a lot more nuanced if there was more of a succinct idea behind the book. But that's not to say I didn't enjoy it as the book was definitely as shocking and entertaining as her other novels, and her characters still as wonderfully weird as they have always been. The only thing which freaked me out a bit was the ending. Murata has always been one to push boundaries and challenge our perception of normal, but I can't decide if she took it too far with the ending of this book. I can't really think of the reason it was there apart from shock factor, but it made me feel a little uncomfortable.

I would definitely recommend this book and I'm excited to see what other people think. It was definitely messy, but it was a mess I completely raced through and enjoyed every time I picked it up.

I would like to thank Net Galley this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

I've previously read Convenience Store Woman and Life Ceremony so I knew what I was getting myself into when I picked up this Murata book, but I feel Vanishing World pushes the boundary further.

It's hard to read this book and miss Murata's commentary of 21st century Japanese society. This analysis is done in such a clever and skilful manner. You don't feel like Murata is stood upon a soapbox criticising life in Japan, but instead she takes you on a journey where you - the reader - speculates and questions life and the the true purpose of love and its place in society. This book made me reflect on the differences in British and Japanese society but also humans as a whole and what it means to be in love, to have a family and contribute to the world.

In summary, this book is a wild trip. Pick it up and read it so that you can make your opinions of what sex and love truly mean.

Full disclaimer: I worry this review didn't make much sense and I do apologise for this. My thoughts are everywhere with this book.

The Vanishing World is as Sayaka Murata as it really gets -- the wacky, the weird and the ridiculously absurd delivered in the most deadpan manner. And this time, she breaks down the nuclear family structure, in a world where sex is deemed unnecessary for human life to prevail, and artificial insemination reigns.

We follow the main character's -- Amane -- journey through the various stages of her life, as she tries to define over and over what it means to love and how to display it in a world where it's seen as a mere inconvenience. Families exist purely to be phased out in the near future, and children belong to everyone and no one. It's the sort of story that makes you reconsider why we exactly we live the way we do, and what it means to sacrifice simple tenets of our being in place of new traditions. My gripe is this novel, while abundant with all the elements I love so much about Murata, was that the world-building felt too far overblown to be tackled in its entirety within the span of the novel. Amane is uninterested in being the deviant, the anti0hero, the vigilante or challenging the norms of the new world, and rather has every intention of being normal, or realigning her version of normal with everyone else's -- which is a refreshing notion, but also makes for a disjointed story as Murata tries to deliver specific social commentary while also displaying Amane's slow detachment from the old world. The timeline jumps and repetitive storytelling grow tiring towards the latter half, and then picks up again at quick pace before falling to an abrupt end. That being said, I was, as the kids call it, 'GAGGED' throughout the entirety of the novel.

I am a Sayaka Murata loyalist forever, easily one of my favourite writers of this era,

3.75/5

at one point murata muses, through her protagonist amane, that normality is the real danger, which feels fitting with what's happening all around the world with the rise of the far right. in a flipped dystopian world, artificial insemination is now the norm with how babies are brought into the world. because of this, the existence of people who have had sex or have been brought into the world through sex are the minority. yet, the nuclear family prevails with many getting married for the purpose of having a child through artificial insemination while still dating other people on the side. wife and husband are almost sibling like with sex between the two considered incest. told in a way that peals back the influence of the government on this sort of familial structure, i don't want to give away much more than that because it's best to go into this one with as little background as possible to soak in all of murata's social commentary. the only thing i would nitpick is that murata or the translators often repeat the same social commentary/at times even use the same wording which felt like she didn't trust the reader as much, but the build up was worth it in the end.

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata is a provocative exploration of a dystopian society where traditional concepts of sex, love, and family are radically redefined. In this alternative Japan, procreation occurs exclusively through artificial insemination, and sexual relations between married couples are deemed taboo. The protagonist, Amane, conceived through natural means, grapples with her innate desires in a world that shuns them. Murata's narrative delves into themes of societal conformity, the essence of human connection, and the consequences of suppressing natural instincts. The book stands as a bold commentary on modern societal shifts and the complexities of human nature.

#vanishingworld by @sayaka_murata_ translated by @ginnytakemori, thank you to @netgalley and @grantabooks for this #arc

#sayakamurata is a very talented writer and storyteller. None of her stories to date have been conventional and let's hope she never changes. A dystopian story, it doesn't just attempt to sell an idea of an alternative world, as much as it builds it and makes it frighteningly real. Without giving too much away, it focuses on relationships and child-bearing, with two different developments over time. The way Murata writes, you understand the logic and feel the decisions, it's unsettling!

The thing that got me was how much I could see the real world going the same way in terms of a form of brainwashing or collective societal pressure to conform to one specific way of doing things. Everything being drip dripped into each person until you are adopting the same messages. We have got to hope and pray for everyone to keep doing what they want to do in all forms of life. It's like the saying "just because no one is doing it, doesn't mean it's wrong, and just because everyone is doing it, doesn't mean it's right".

Overall I really enjoyed this book, the world that was presented was fascinating and I couldn't help but be engaged and provoked by it in so many ways. I loved the exploration of how best to have a child and raise them too. Really got me thinking.

Fantastic book as you can always expect from Murata, it had elements of #thememorypolice in terms of massive changes going under the radar for most due to how they are introduced. Give it a read, you might just love it too!

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