Name: My Annihilation
Rating: 3.125 (8 reviews)
ISBN: 9781641292733

Fuminori Nakamura

Japanese literary sensation Fuminori Nakamura's latest novel is a dark look into the human psyche—what turns someone into a killer? Can it be something as small as a suggestion? Turn this page, and you may forfeit your entire life. A confessional diary implicates its reader in a heinous crime, and reveals with disturbing honesty the psychological motives of a killer. With My Annihilation, Fuminori Nakamura, master of literary noir, has constructed a puzzle box of a narrative that delves relentlessly into the darkest corners of human consciousness, interrogating the unspeakable thoughts all humans share and only monsters act on.

My Annihilation

fira

This is the tradeoff for passing over to the other side. To make a dream come true, something must be sacrificed.

If I took my eyes off her, she tried to kill herself, and if I tried to stop her she would scream. All that I could do was make her go to sleep.

'graveyard of the rich' might not actually mean anything within the context of the narrative but i just really liked the choice in wording.

"You're welcome back anytime. To my comfortable abode." He gave me a faint smile. "This graveyard of the rich."

When human beings can cover their faces and hide behind a shield of goodness, they release their aggression without hesitation.

(there must be something wrong with me because the first thing i thought of upon reading this was 'oh it's giving sasuke')

—Turn that self-hate on your enemies. Don't change it into something else. Trade your good health for revenge.

we found love in a hopeless place 🎤 (for legal purposes i do NOT mean this i am shitposting. this is a jokey joke)

"There's a lot that we don't know about each other... but maybe this distance is a good thing... When I'm with you, I don't feel the tension that I always feel with other people. If someone saw us from afar, we'd look like a pretty old couple."

Sam Bett

Turn this page, and you may forfeit your entire life. A confessional diary implicates its reader in a heinous crime, and reveals with disturbing honesty the psychological motives of a killer. With My Annihilation, Fuminori Nakamura, master of literary noir, has constructed a puzzle-box of a narrative that delves relentlessly into the darkest corners of human consciousness, that interrogates the unspeakable thoughts that all humans share and that only monsters act on.

Chris Hilyer

There were enough truths in this book to make it worthy of a reread. It is pretty small in scope but contains a few insightful nuggets on human nature. Anybody looking for a well-structured narrative should avoid this. Anybody looking for a casual read should also avoid this. I'm not sure I would recommend this to any of my friends.

azliana aziz

first thing is i thought this one was such a beast for a translator to work on. 

haven't read nakamura for a while and yes this one didn't disappoint at all. there's this sense of sophistication in the writing that pull the story back from being gratuitous (or exploitative) that is rampant in this kind of genre. arched examination on personhood by way of surreal + pop psychology of serial killers.

what does it mean for a person to be alive? what does it mean to be human; to exist in the world? i wasn't expecting to be left contemplating the answers to those questions by this book, which had begun as an unsettling read (and honestly, remains unsettling to its very end) and wound up being... pretty sad, mostly. so many identity twists that i had to keep constant track of it in my mind, but i always appreciate a book that does not coddle its readers, although it meant more confusion on my end. (i am sure i'll handle that part of that experience better when i inevitably reread this one day in the future.) kozuka's character is an interesting one, in the sense that you wouldn't expect him to be sympathetic; but the more you learn about him, the further you go into his head, the more humanity i was able to gleam, scrappy and bruised and manufactured as they may have been (what is real? what isn't?) fuminori nakamura states in the book's afterword that he considers the book a success if, "whether in its overall shape or in its details, has brought about some kind of feeling in my readers" — it was a success to me, even if said feeling is one i've yet to place.

Started 2023 off strong with this book, and it quite quickly became my second favourite read of all time. Despite the fact that I was confused for 90% of the book (I saw a TikTok saying to stick with it for the resolve) the satisfaction of it all coming together in the most sickeningly disgusting way at the end, while leaving me traumatised on the couch with a tears welling in my eyes, made this book all the more incredible to witness. And while I miss the person I was before reading this book, it will forever be one of those books you will always wish to re-read for the first time. 

ariah 

Japanese literary sensation Fuminori Nakamura's latest novel is as a dark look into human psyche--what turns someone into a killer? Can it be something as small as a suggestion? Turn this page, and you may forfeit your entire life. A confessional diary implicates its reader in a heinous crime, and reveals with disturbing honesty the psychological motives of a killer. With My Annihilation, Fuminori Nakamura, master of literary noir, has constructed a puzzle-box of a narrative that delves relentlessly into the darkest corners of human consciousness, that interrogates the unspeakable thoughts that all humans share and that only monsters act on.

My Annihilation

Reviews

Highlights