Saturday, December 05, 2020

Eight fictional housewives who snapped (in a fun way)

Katie Yee is a Brooklyn-based writer and the Book Marks associate editor at Lit Hub. If you follow @bookmarksreads on Instagram, you'll see lots of photos of her rescue dog, Oliver.

At Lit Hub she tagged eight novels featuring women who have had enough. One title on the list:
Natsuki of Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings

Natsuki doesn’t quite fit in to the society she calls “a baby-making factory.” She doesn’t want to be a cog in this machine. Looking at the world through her eyes is a fascinating exercise in defamiliarization. (Apartment complexes are “nests.”) Eventually, pressured by her family and cultural expectations, she enters into a platonic marriage with a man who shares her disinterest in romance and the roles they’re supposed to play in society. So, not your typical housewife, but on the surface and to all of her friends and family, she has finally become a part of the baby-making factory. Right? Wrong. Eventually, Natsuki and her husband flee society and, well, in the epitome of straight-up snapping, let’s just say there’s cannibalism.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue