![]() ![]() Her mother calls her “hopeless … she’s like a weight around my neck”. Natsuki conjures a makeshift family out of Piyyut and her cousin Yuu because her existing family doesn’t work. So far, so kawaii, but the cute whimsy unrolled before the reader in the opening pages turns out to be covering a trapdoor. For 10-year-old Natsuki in Earthlings, it’s the imaginary planet Popinpobopia, which she believes to be her destiny, at least according to her cuddly toy Piyyut. For Keiko in Convenience Store Woman, it was the reassuringly uniform, striplit security of the shop where she had worked all her adult life. ![]() Both feature young women who reject society’s expectations and seek comfort in replacement forms of community. The two books might be seen as siblings, though Earthlings would definitely be the evil twin. ![]() S ayaka Murata’s new novel takes the quietly spoken themes of her cult hit Convenience Store Woman and sends them into orbit. ![]()
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