I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN (NOVEMBER 2024 EDITION)

Well, I am …

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is my first time reading Sayaka Murata, and I picked it up because someone else had name-dropped it somewhere, and the pitch sounded right up my street: Natsuki is an 11-year-old girl who believes she has magic powers granted to her by her toy hedgehog, and later thinks she may be an alien waiting for a spaceship to come pick her up and take her home. I’ve felt that way many times in my life, and I figured, okay, quirky Japanese novel about not fitting in. Well, it’s quirky alright – but it’s also a horror story, and it’s one of the bleakest, disturbing and nastiest books I’ve read in a really long time.

Natsuki gets the idea of being an alien from her cousin Yuu, who lives with his family in a remote house in the mountains where her family goes once a year on holiday. Yuu thinks he’s an alien, and soon Natsuki thinks she might be one too. She’s also in love with Yuu, mainly because she has no one else she can trust – her parents are psychologically abusive to her, and her cram-school teacher is molesting her, and nobody believes her when she tries to tell them. Yuu and Natsuki make a vow that has consequences immediately, and then decades later when Natsuki returns to the mountain house with her husband, who also thinks he’s an alien.

On one level, the book is a well-paced and reasonably effective absurdist commentary on the cost of refusing (or being unable) to conform to society’s expectations, as well as the alienating effect of sexual abuse on victims who are blamed for what happened to them. However, for me the dark humor is offset by Murata’s disturbingly graphic depictions of violence, underage sex and child abuse as seen from the POV of the child, while the final act veers into a climax so depraved and gruesome that it cost me a night’s sleep. Maybe 20 years ago I would have liked this, but these days I don’t have the heart or stomach for this sort of thing. If you do, go for it. Just be advised: if trigger warnings are a thing for you, this book has pretty much all the triggers except cruelty to animals.


Shakespeare for Squirrels by Christopher Moore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the third of Christopher Moore’s Shakespeare parodies/homages featuring court jester Pocket of Dog Snogging on Ouze. Whereas the first two books took on King Lear and The Merchant of Venice, this one tackles what’s said to be Shakespeare’s most-performed play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream – in this case, with an added murder mystery, lots of bawdy sex jokes and, of course, squirrels.

Moore keeps a lot of the basic elements, including the location of Athens, where Pocket, idiot apprentice Drool and hat-shagging monkey Jeff wash ashore after being set adrift by pirates. In short order, the trio encounter Nick Bottom and the mechanicals rehearsing a play for the wedding of Theseus (Duke of Athens) and Hippolyta (Amazon queen). They also meet fairy folk, including Cobweb, who helps them survive in the woods, and Robin Goodfellow (a.k.a. the Puck), who is abruptly murdered. Pocket and Drool are arrested, but Pocket ends up commissioned by Hippolyta and Theseus to find out who killed the Puck, and why.

To explain what any of this has to do with squirrels would ruin the surprise, but in any case, this is Moore once again retelling Shakespeare as a madcap sex comedy that’s easier to read and a lot funnier, whilst somehow managing to stay more or less true to the original characters despite taking a lot of comic liberties. While Moore’s sequels can be a mixed bag, I do think he’s managed to keep the quality level pretty consistent in the Pocket series. The story gets somewhat convoluted (although so was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so fair enough), but it’s an awful lot of fun to read.

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