Vanishing World

 Sayaka Murata

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Science Fiction + Literary Fiction + Dystopia

Vanishing World is a dystopian story set in an alternative Japan where love, marriage, sex, and procreation have totally transformed into something different from our current world and definitions of all these things.

The story follows a woman called Amane, who now lives in this world where sex between married couples is something prohibited and considered like an assault! She is shocked when she knows that her parents conceived her the natural way for our world, but not for the main character’s world!

Not only that, but Amane and her husband, Saku, have a sexless marriage where the wife also can date other men openly! As we follow Amane, we get to see the conflicts inside her, whether those are related to her personal identity or to the norms of the society. In a society where men can also get pregnant, Amane as well as the other characters have many challenges to face.

This was a crazy read! Of course I mean it in a good way. I’m sure the original Japanese version must be better because, no matter what, some sentences and meanings change during translation. But even if this version was the original version that was written, it still has a lot to offer.

The book is atmospheric and has many ideas, some of which can be considered bizarre. And I guess that was one of the main things that made me enjoy reading this dystopian story. The concept is bold and quite unique, making this book a very original work of art. The author's beautifully blended themes will make you pause and think. I love it when stories provoke my thoughts in this way.

I’d recommend this book for any reader who has an open mind and can get into the story without being too judgmental. Indeed, the topics discussed here and their treatment in this alternative Japan may not resonate with all readers.

Note: What irritated me while reading the book on my Kindle, and this is not the fault of the book or the writing, was the format. More specifically, it was the absence of appropriate formatting. It is not OK to send ebooks even if they are ARCs in this way. No matter how hard I tried to ignore the problem, it still affected my reading experience.

This is a picture of my Kindle to show one of the pages. Not all the pages are like that, but many of them are.


Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC of this book.