Earthlings is the extremely bizarre but clever story about a young girl called Natsuki Sasamoto who believes she has magical powers and longs for a spaceship to come and take her and her cousin Yuu, back to their home planet.

Natsuki faces a lot of abuse from those closest to her and as a defense mechanism, she forms delusions in her mind and mimics the behaviour of others. Several years pass and Natsuki now lives in a marriage of convenience when a tragic event from her past comes to light, with dire consequences.

Earthlings develops unsettling themes that some readers may find disturbing, including; child abuse, sexual abuse, bullying, gaslighting, victim-blaming, suicide and just when you thought it was over, cannibalism.

Murata has a distinct worldview that explores the darker crevices of humanity and typical human structures such as capitalism. I was completely gripped by Earthlings and I read it in a day, despite the fact that I found it predictable in places. Also from the very outset, this book asks you to suspend your disbelief to eyebrow-raising proportions but within all that absurdity exists a lot of pain and depth.

There is also asexual representation in this book, which comes from a place of trauma and mental illness, but it adds to the complexity of these characters. Though it doesn't in anyway portray the average asexual experience, I thought the ace rep helped develop the characters more fully.

The ending was completely unhinged and left me gobsmacked. Earthlings was a perverse, mind-altering but ultimately thoughtful book.