I once heard a comedian who'd written a book say that many authors are just writing the same book over and over again. While this feels a little over-simplified, there are definitely writers it applies to.

Earthling just feels like Convenience Store Woman 2. It takes most of the same things and even some of the plot structure and stacks more heightened elements and trauma into the mix.

While Convenience Store Woman mostly demonstrated the negative effects of conformity on individuals by showing character behavior, this book often seems to straight up lecture the reader about the nature of conformity, often referred to as "The Factory".

Most people know a person who spends too much time ranting about conformity. When I was young I WAS one of those people and I didn't even particularly like myself while I was doing it. Most literate, thoughtful people are well aware of the issue in a general sense. This book doesn't seem to have any particularly unique angle to approach it from.

And in place of a unique angle of approach, this book substitutes some extreme escalation. If you have any sort of triggers, I would suggest staying far away from this book, and it seems to lean into trauma and violence almost out of a lack of knowing where else to take the story.

As her second translated work, this definitely made me hesitant to check out future books by this author, because a part of me worries it will continue the trend of just making more complicated, more transgressive versions of her biggest hit.