RaveViceAs an autistic person, Murata’s sparse, straightforward prose is easy to read and get lost in. But it wasn’t just her linguistic style; reading Keiko struggle through social interactions, pushing down her own emotions and observing how other people interact and mimicking how they speak, I saw myself. When I worked in the service industry, I struggled with the social expectations of the job, but, like Keiko, I found comfort in having a script and a routine. I thought I was alone until I read autistic novelist Naoise Dolan’s piece on the Guardian earlier this year: \'I thought I was too different to see myself in a novel – but Sayaka Murata got me.\' ... If Convenience Store Woman is about, in part, the comforts of routines and scripts, Earthlings is about the opposite: the freedom to be found when you stop trying, when you abandon all of the rules and indulge entirely in what makes you feel good and comfortable at any cost ... It’s a sharp interrogation of the way our brains and bodies react to trauma and to feeling \'other\' that forces anyone to question what their place is, what’s truly necessary to exist in society, and what \'normal\' truly means ... Murata’s novels are a valuable, heightened exploration of the intense discomfort that people, autistic or not, who are just a little outside of society can feel when they try to force themselves to fit in. Murata’s message is: stop trying.
Caitlin Doughty
PositiveThe Guardian (UK)Nobody likes to think about mortality, but if you’re going to, there are far worse places to start than Doughty. Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? is funny, dark, and at times stunningly existential, revealing not only how little we understand about death, but also how much kids can handle. As to whether or not your cat will eat your eyeballs? You’ll just have to read the book to find out.
