Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC! This book won a prestigious Japanese literary award, with Saou Ichikawa being the first physically disabled author to do so. I thought it was stunning, honestly. Dark and disturbing, for sure, but forcing readers to confront their internal prejudices/stereotypes of disabled people - primarily that they’re non-sexual beings. The main character and narrator of this semi-autobiographical novel(la) was born with a muscular disorder, is a super rich orphan living in a care facility, and is incredibly horny. She yearns to live life the way able-bodied women do, and regularly tweets out inflammatory tweets along the lines of wishing she could try sex work or get an abortion. She writes SEO articles about sex clubs for seedy websites and publishes online erotica under several pen names. When a male careworker links Shaka to her online personas, things get dicey.

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Exploring lust, desire, abuses of power and privilege, ableism in Japan, money and the freedom the internet affords people denied it elsewhere, this is just a little bombshell of a book. Perhaps too little - I wanted more of Shaka, she’s cheeky, intelligent, headstrong and I could have read 200 pages more of her. The ending was fantastically grim and could be read a couple of ways. Flawlessly translated by Polly Barton. Desperately hoping this author has more to come!