Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata | Book Review

"Love is just entertainment, that’s what I think, anyway."

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata is a book that makes us think about love, relationships, and what it means to be "normal." It’s set in an alternate Japan where things like marriage, romance, and even sex are considered outdated. Instead, people only reproduce through medical procedures, and most prefer forming attachments to artificial or fictional figures rather than real human relationships. The main character, Amane, grows up with a mother who still believes in the old ways like love, family, and having children naturally. But when Amane goes to school, she realizes how different things are and starts questioning everything.

(Vanishing World oleh Sayaka Murata adalah buku yang membuat kita berpikir tentang cinta, hubungan, dan apa sih sebenarnya arti jadi "normal." Ceritanya sendiri bersetting di Jepang alternatif di mana hal-hal kayak pernikahan, romansa, bahkan seks dianggap sudah ketinggalan zaman. Malah, orang-orang di sana cuma bereproduksi lewat prosedur medis, dan kebanyakan lebih memilih punya ikatan dengan tokoh-tokoh buatan atau fiksi daripada dengan manusia nyata.  Tokoh utamanya adalah Amane, dia tumbuh bersama seorang ibu yang masih percaya dengan cara-cara lama tentang cinta, keluarga, dan punya anak secara alami. Tapi, ketika Amane pergi ke sekolah, dia baru sadar betapa berbedanya dunia luar dan mulai bertanya-tanya tentang semuanya. Seru banget buat dibaca, apalagi buat yang suka berpikir gimana norma-norma sosial bisa membentuk hidup kita.)

BOOK INFORMATION

Title                       : Vanishing World 

Original title        : 消滅世界

Translator            : Ginny Tapley Takemori

Author                  : Sayaka Murata 

Publisher             : Granta Books

Language             : English 

Length                  : 240 pages

Released               : April 25, 2025

Read                     : February 21-24, 2025

GR Rating            : 3.67

My rating            : 4.00

SYNOPSIS 

'Normality is the creepiest madness there is...'

In our near-future world, children are solely conceived by artificial insemination. Even sex between married couples is viewed as taboo.

Amane's family is irregular. Her parents copulated to create her and hope that she too will find love and have a child with the person she marries. But Amane falls in line with society's way of thinking and wants a regular 'clean' marriage. Then she hears of a place that is the subject of a social experiment. Everyone in Paradise-Eden will act as one big family. Could this be the perfect third way?

PERFECT FOR:

🔺Your existential crisis era

🔺Book clubs that want drama

🔺Anyone who's ever questioned "normal"

SIDE EFFECTS:

🔺Existential crises during shower thoughts

🔺Suddenly questioning your entire life choices at 2AM

🔺Side-eyeing every "normal" societal rule

🔺Inability to shut up about this book to friends

🔺Permanent damage to your comfort zone

TL;DR: A tiny book that punches WAY above its weight, like if your deepest existential fears threw up on a pages and became weirdly relatable. Read at your own risk.

BOOK REVIEW 

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata is basically my brain at 3 a.m. with all those chaotic "wait, but why?" debates about society, love, and family finally put into words. If you’ve never questioned the rules we live by, it might low-key freak you out. But if you’ve ever side-eyed tradition and thought, "Is this really what I want, or just what I’ve been told to want?", this book is your invite to the conversation. Like Convenience Store Woman and Life Ceremony, it forces you to ask: How much of what I believe is actually mine, and how much is just societal autopilot?

This book doesn’t stick to one vibe, it’s like a TikTok rabbit hole of existential questions. It bounces between "what’s normal??" and "why do we even care??" while low-key terrifying you with a world where collectivism goes full Black Mirror. At times, it feels like Murata took society’s rulebook and said, "Let’s see how bad this could get." And it makes you wonder: If no one was watching, would I still want the life I have? Or is this all just peer pressure from, like, the entire human race?

Amane’s story is a wild mirror to our own lives. It shows how even the most yikes societal norms can start to feel chill if everyone acts like they’re NBD. Makes you question everything, are my "deepest beliefs" actually mine, or just stuff I absorbed like a sponge? What if "right" and "wrong" are just trends, and we’re all just following the moral equivalent of skinny jeans?

But the most chef’s kiss part? How it handles love and intimacy. In this world, romance isn’t about kids, it’s about obsessing over fictional characters (sound familiar??). It’s basically calling out our parasocial era, where people are out here writing fanfic instead of going on dates. Ever felt more connected to a celeb or anime character than your IRL crush? Yeah. This book gets it.

The creepiest things about this book is the Experiment City. Imagine a place where every kid is a literal clone, same haircut, same clothes, even the same creepy smiles. That’s Kodomo-chan: human born from a factory that pumps out identical people instead of iPhones.

This isn’t just dystopian fantasy, it’s a hyper-exaggerated version of what we already deal with. Schools that reward conformity over creativity. Workplaces where "professionalism" means erasing your personality. Beauty standards that make existing in your natural skin feel like a sin. Kodomo-chan here is a warning about how much of yourself you are smoothing down to fit in.

It seems Murata is asking us about what’s scarier between chaos and a world where everyone’s a carbon copy? We love to preach "order" and "efficiency," but at what cost? If we prioritize sameness over individuality, do we all just become NPCs in someone else’s simulation?

In the center of all this is Amane’s complicated relationship with her mom. Amane’s mom is that one relative who’s like, "This is how love/family/life works, no discussion." She doesn’t guide, she dictates. And surprise: it backfires. Amane doesn’t rebel because she hates tradition, she rebels because she’s never allowed to understand it. Sound familiar? (Cough Boomers vs. Gen Z cough.)

Even while rejecting her mom’s beliefs, Amane still ends up tangled in similar experiences, just on her own terms. Sex isn’t about duty or romance, but it’s curiosity-driven. It’s like veganism vs. plant-based diet: same plants, different scope and motivation. This book’s real lesson? You can’t force values on people. You can only give them space to figure it out.

Beyond family conflicts, this book hits hard on a truth we all know: you can be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone. Even in a society that’s rewritten the rules of love and relationships, isolation still creeps in. It’s not just about outdated norms, it’s about how no amount of social engineering can fake real human connection. Sound familiar? We’re living it: drowning in parasocial crushes, AI companions, and performative social media "closeness." But at the end of the day, you can’t algorithm your way out of loneliness.

Watching Amane’s transformation is like seeing someone get brainwashed in 4K. At first, she’s holding onto scraps of the old world like family, emotions, having a personality. But bit by bit, she dissolves into the hive mind, believing "we’re all the same" like some dystopian mantra. The scariest part? It makes sense to her now. Proof that any ideology, no matter how extreme, starts feeling normal if it’s all you breathe.

Here’s where it gets really uncomfortable: Amane still does things from the past (like sex), but with a terrifying new mindset. It’s not curiosity anymore, it’s a cold, cult-like "expression of oneness." And since "everyone is the same" in her eyes, even minors aren’t off-limits. Boundaries? Ethics? Gone. Murata isn’t just warning us about societal control, he’s showing how people don’t just obey extreme systems, they twist them into something worse.

That ending left me disturbed. Because under the sci-fi weirdness, it’s asking: "What are we trading for ‘progress’?" Love? Real connections? Having a self? This isn’t just some far-off dystopia, it’s a mirror. When we prioritize efficiency over humanity, convenience over depth, are we already becoming Amane?

(Vanishing World oleh Sayaka Murata berasa kayak otakku di jam 3 pagi, semua debat random soal "eh tapi kok bisa sih?" tentang masyarakat, cinta, dan keluarga akhirnya dituangkan ke dalam kata-kata. Kalau kamu gak pernah mempertanyakan aturan hidup kita, kemungkinan kamu bakal merinding baca buku ini. Tapi kalau kamu pernah meragukan tradisi terus berpikir "Gue beneran mau melakukan ini apa cuma karena disuruh?", buku ini jadi berasa kayak undangan buat ngobrol seru. Kayak Convenience Store Woman sama Life Ceremony, buku ini memaksa kita bertanya: "Sebenernya ini kepercayaan gue beneran milik gue, apa cuma ikut-ikutan doang?"

Nggak cuma satu vibe doang, buku ini kayak Tiktok rabbit hole buat pertanyaan-pertanyaan eksistensial. Loncat-loncat dari "normal itu apaan sih??" sampai "ngapain kita peduli??" sambil bikin merinding dengan dunia yang kolektivisme-nya full Black Mirror. Kadang rasanya kayak Sayaka Murata ngambil society rulebook terus ngomong "Ayo kita lihat seberapa parah ini bisa terjadi". Dan bikin kita berpikir: Kalau gak ada yang lihat, apa gue bakal tetap mau hidup kayak sekarang? Atau ini cuma tekanan sosial dari seluruh umat manusia?

Cerita Amane ini kayak cermin aneh buat hidup kita. Dia menunjukkan gimana norma masyarakat yang yikes banget bisa jadi keliatan chill kalo semua orang menganggap itu hal yang biasa. Gimana kalau "benar" dan "salah" itu cuma tren, dan kita semua cuma ikut-ikutan kayak tren skinny jeans jaman dulu?

Tapi yang paling chef's kiss? Cara buku ini ngomongin cinta dan keintiman. Di dunia ini, cinta nggak ada hubungannya sama punya anak, malah lebih ke hubungan sama karakter fiksi (sounds familiar??). Ini kayak call out generasi kita yang lebih parasocial, di mana orang-orang lebih suka nulis fanfic daripada dating. Pernah ngerasa lebih deket sama celeb atau karakter anime daripada crush di dunia nyata? Yup. Buku ini ngerti banget.

Yang paling creepy? Kota Eksperimen. Bayangin tempat di mana semua anak tuh literal clone dengan potongan rambut sama, baju sama, bahkan senyum creepy-nya sama semua. Itulah Kodomo-chan: manusia hasil pabrik yang mass production orang-orang bukannya iPhone. 

Ini bukan cuma fantasi dystopia, karena ini versi hiperbolis dari yang sudah kita alami. Sekolah yang lebih value penyeragaman daripada kreativitas. Dunia kerja di mana "profesional" artinya menghapus kepribadian. Standar kecantikan yang bikin hidup dengan warna kulit asli kita aja rasanya kayak dosa. Kodomo-chan tuh peringatan tentang seberapa banyak sih diri kita yang kita smooth down cuma biar bisa fit in.

Kayaknya Murata lagi nanya ke kita: mana yang lebih serem antara kekacauan atau dunia di mana semua orang kayak fotokopian? Kita suka banget ngomongin "keteraturan" dan "efisiensi", tapi masa sampai segitunya? Kalau kita lebih milih keseragaman daripada individualitas, apa kita cuma jadi NPC di simulasi orang lain?

Di tengah semua ini, ada hubungan complicated Amane sama ibunya. Ibunya Amane adalah tipe orang yang kayak, "Ini cara mencintai/berkeluarga/hidup yang bener, nggak usah dibahas lagi". Dia nggak ngasih arahan, tapi maksa. Dan surprise-surprise: hasilnya malah gagal. Amane memberontak bukan karena benci tradisi, tapi karena dia nggak pernah dikasih kesempatan buat memahami itu semua. Sound familiar? (Ehem Boomers vs Gen Z ehem.)

Meskipun menolak kepercayaan ibunya, Amane tetep aja melakukan hal-hal yang sama, cuma dengan caranya sendiri. Seks nggak soal kewajiban atau cinta, tapi murni didorong rasa penasaran. Ini kayak bedanya vegan sama plant-based: bahannya sama, tapi alasan dan scope-nya beda. Pelajaran utamanya? Kamu nggak bisa maksain keyakinan ke orang lain. Kamu cuma bisa kasih mereka ruang buat cari tau sendiri.

Nggak cuma konflik keluarga, buku ini juga menyampaikan fakta pahit yang kita semua tau: kita bisa dikelilingi banyak orang tapi tetap merasa sendirian. Bahkan dalam masyarakat yang udah menulis ulang semua aturan tentang cinta dan hubungan, rasa sepi tetep bisa menyelinap. Ini nggak cuma soal norma-norma jadul, tapi soal gimana sebanyak apapun rekayasa sosial nggak bakal bisa menciptakan koneksi antar manusia yang beneran. Sound familiar? Kita hidup di dunia yang tenggelam dalam parasocial crush, teman virtual AI, dan "kedekatan" di media sosial yang cuma di permukaan. Tapi ujung-ujungnya, kita nggak bisa mengakali rasa sepi pakai algoritma.

Melihat perubahan Amane berasa kayak lihat orang kena cuci otak versi 4K ultra HD! Awalnya dia masih ngerem, dengan berpegangan pada sisa-sisa dunia lama seperti keluarga, perasaan, dan kepribadian. Tapi pelan-pelan, dia larut dalam pikiran kolektif, percaya "kita semua sama" kayak mantra dystopian. Yang paling ngeri? Sekarang itu semua masuk akal buat dia. Hal ini membuktikan bahwa ideologi apapun, se-ekstrim apapun, bakal keliatan normal kalau kita hidup di dalamnya terus.

Nah ini bagian yang bikin geleng-geleng: Amane tetep ngelakuin hal-hal dari masa lalu (kayak seks), tapi dengan pola pikir baru yang ngeri. Sudah bukan soal penasaran lagi, sekarang itu cuma ekspresi "kebersamaan" yang dingin kayak kultus. Dan karena "semua orang sama" di matanya, usia muda pun nggak jadi batasan. Batasan? Etika? Hilang. Sayaka Murata nggak cuma ngasih warning soal kontrol masyarakat, tapi juga nunjukin gimana orang nggak cuma mengikuti sistem ekstrim, tapi malah memelintirnya jadi lebih parah.

Endingnya bikin merinding. Di balik weirdness ala sci-fi, pertanyaannya tuh: "Kita nuker apa sih demi 'kemajuan'?" Cinta? Koneksi real? Punya jati diri? Ini bukan cuma dystopian masa depan, ini cermin kita. Ketika kita lebih milih efisiensi daripada kemanusiaan, kemudahan daripada kedalaman, jangan-jangan kita udah mulai jadi kayak Amane?)

THINGS I LOVE

■ This book will wreck your entire worldview on love, sex, and family, then rebuild it from scratch. It's not just some dystopian fantasy, it's a full-on interrogation of all the invisible rules we never realized were controlling us. Buckle up.

■ Sayaka Murata is on another level when it comes to writing the weirdest, most unsettling "what if" scenarios. Her stories feel both alien and uncomfortably familiar. This book has a serious WTF factor, one of those reads where you have to pause, process, and wonder, "Did I really just read that?"

■ The scary genius of this world? It's basically our society on steroids. Murata takes real societal trends, like how we date, how tech controls us, how families are changing, and cranks it to 1000x. The most terrifying part? You can actually see us heading this way IRL.

■ The whole "falling for fictional characters" thing? Yeah, that's already happening. With AI girlfriends, VTuber obsessions, and parasocial relationships everywhere, this book forces the real question: what happens when pixels feel more real than people?

■ Here's the ultimate gut-punch: Do you actually believe in society's rules, or did you just get brainwashed to follow them? This book doesn't just question traditions, it makes you wonder if your entire moral compass was programmed by the internet and capitalism.

■ Beneath all the social horror, there's something painfully human here. That deep loneliness when you're surrounded by people but still empty inside. That identity crisis when the world keeps moving the goalposts. This book haunts you because it's holding up a mirror.

■ Murata’s writing style is simple but lowkey hypnotic. There’s something unique about how she presents this strange, unsettling world without judgment. She doesn’t tell you how to feel, she just throws you into this weird world and lets you sit there, uncomfortable, figuring it out for yourself. That's why her stories stick with you like that one weird dream you can't forget.

(■ Buku ini bakal menghancurkan semua persepsi kita tentang cinta, seks, dan keluarga , terus membangun ulang dari nol. Ini bukan cuma cerita dystopian biasa, ini kayak interogasi brutal terhadap semua aturan gaib yang selama ini mengontrol hidup kita tanpa kita sadari. Siap-siap mental ya!

■ Sayaka Murata emang jago banget bikin cerita yang aneh tapi nagih. Ide-ide "what if" yang dia buat itu di satu sisi terasa asing, tapi di sisi lain juga mirip banget sama dunia kita. Buku ini punya efek "WTF banget", yang bikin kita harus berhenti sejenak, mencerna apa yang baru aja kita baca, terus mikir, "Serius nih barusan aku baca kayak gini?"  

■ Genius sampai bikin ngeri? Dunia buku ini tuh kayak masyarakat kita tapi versi ekstrim. Murata mengambil realita masyarakat kayak soal pacaran, kecanduan teknologi, perubahan struktur keluarga, terus dibikin 1000x lebih intens. Yang paling ngeselin? Kita bisa lihat kita sebenernya sudah mulai ke arah situ IRL.

■ Soal jatuh cinta sama karakter fiksi? Bro, itu udah terjadi beneran. Dari pacar AI, obsesi VTuber, sampe parasocial relationship dimana-mana, buku ini nanya: gimana kalau suatu hari nanti pixel terasa lebih nyata daripada manusia beneran?

■ Nih pertanyaan paling ngena: kita beneran percaya sama aturan masyarakat, atau cuma ikut-ikutan karena dikondisikan seperti itu? Buku ini nggak cuma mempertanyakan soal tradisi, tapi bikin kita meragukan seluruh moral compass kita, jangan-jangan kita cuma produk internet dan kapitalisme doang.

■ Tapi di balik semua horor sosialnya, ada sesuatu yang beneran manusiawi banget. Rasa kesepian yang dalem banget padahal dikelilingi banyak orang. Krisis identitas di dunia yang terus berubah. Buku ini memorable karena sebenernya itu cerminan kita semua.

■ Gaya nulis Sayaka Murata tuh simpel tapi hypnotic banget. Ada yang unik dari caranya menggambarkan dunia aneh ini tanpa judgement. Dia nggak menyuruh kita bagaimana menikmatinya, cuma melemparkan kita ke dunianya yang absurd terus membiarkan  kita merenung sendiri. Makanya ceritanya nempel di kepala kayak mimpi aneh yang susah dilupain.)

WHICH TROPE ARE YOU AFTER READING?

A) The Amane (fully embraced the chaos, lowkey makes sense to you now) → You're the unhinged villain origin story

B) The Horrified But Curious (WTF but I can't look away) → Congrats, you're the main character

C) The Denier ("This would NEVER happen!") → You're that one naive side character who dies first

D) The Overthinker (starts questioning entire life choices) → You're the tortured philosopher of the group

E) The Cool Inside Out (just chill, maybe questions why people horrified or reacts to this book) → You're Kodomo-chan, bro

SAVAGE RATINGS (out of 5 skulls)

Mindfuckery Level: ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️ (full existential crisis)

Social Commentary: ☠️☠️☠️☠️ (scarily accurate)

WTF Scenes: ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️ (multiple jaw-drops guaranteed)

Relatability: ☠️☠️☠️☠️ (you'll either "get it" or need therapy)

Bingeability: ☠️☠️☠️☠️ (short but intense, like an emotional rollercoaster)

CONCLUSION 

Vanishing World will violently shake your beliefs about society, human nature, and everything in between. Sayaka Murata goes full savage, demolishing norms about love, family, and personal freedom, turning those 3AM existential debates into a story that'll haunt you. It's like someone took modern society's weirdest trends (ghosting culture, parasocial relationships, AI romance) and cranked them to dystopian levels. The scary part? You'll catch yourself nodding like "Wait...this kinda makes sense?" even as your moral compass short-circuits. No easy answers here, just brutal, brain-breaking questions: Are your "choices" actually yours? Or did society install them like pre-loaded apps? At under 200 pages, this tiny grenade of a book does what most 500-page novels can't: leave you emotionally wrecked yet dying to debate every chapter.

(Vanishing World bakal mengguncang keyakinan kita tentang masyarakat, sifat manusia, dan segala yang ada di antaranya. Sayaka Murata nggak main-main, dia babat habis norma-norma soal cinta, keluarga, dan kebebasan individu dan mengubah debat eksistensial jam 3 pagi jadi cerita yang bakal nempel di kepala kita. Ini kayak seseorang mengambil tren paling aneh di masyarakat modern (ghosting culture, parasocial relationships, pacaran sama AI) terus dibikin ekstrim level dystopian. Yang ngeri? Kita bakal kedapatan manggut-manggut sambil mikir, "Eh... ini masuk akal juga ya?" padahal moral compass kita sudah error semua. Nggak ada jawaban mudah di sini, cuma pertanyaan-pertanyaan membingungkan: Apa "pilihan" kita beneran milik kita? Atau jangan-jangan cuma program bawaan dari masyarakat? Nggak sampai 200 halaman, buku tipis ini berhasil melakukan apa yang kebanyakan novel 500 halaman nggak bisa: bikin kita mental breakdown tapi sekaligus pengen bahas tiap babnya.)