Firstly, a huge thank you to Granta and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Murata has very quickly become a new favourite author of mine, I especially loved the darker story of Earthlings, so I was thrilled to see that a lot of the collection did follow a similar darkness. Personally, I think Life Ceremony is an amazing introduction to Murata's writing and the range that she can expertly handle. Not only can Murata take mundane every day items that you ordinarily wouldn't think twice about (eg. Curtains) and take them to a whole new level that you have never considered before; but she can also thoroughly explore the inner darkness of people and society in a matter of mere pages.

One of the many reasons that Life Ceremony works so well as a collection is because of the variety of stories that are included. Whilst there are many that are disturbing and unsettling; there are enough stories scattered among them that aren't as dark and offer challenging perspectives in a way that is easier to read, allowing the reader some breathing space between the more difficult reads.

Although, so far, I have focused on the darker aspects of the collection I think it's important to mention that there are elements of humour sprinkled through all the stories. This is another reason I love Murata's writing style. The balance of humour and seriousness is something that Murata gets just right. In many cases the examples of humour not only provide some relief, but they can also serve to further unsettle the reader. For example, I'm not sure I can ever hear the word 'Poochie' in the same way again… or the idea of a life ceremony.

Whilst I loved the collection as whole, I couldn't help but have particular favourites. The opening story A First Rate Material is incredibly strong and really set the tone for the entire collection. I've already mentioned it, but, Poochie totally surprised me. Body Magic and Puzzle were fantastic stories which really delve into the inner workings of the mind and how society moulds, and reacts, to the people within it. Eating the City was also a fascinating take on food and foraging which was very refreshing and interesting. Lastly, I have to talk about Life Ceremony as it was quite possibly my ultimate favourite of the collection. Murata's take and twist on the traditional life and death was captivating. There were so many juxtaposing concepts that really worked together and yet, felt incredibly jarring. I can easily see why this was the titular story.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and the fact that more of Murata's work is being translated excites me as my love for her stories just continues to grow.

A wonderful selection of stories. It’s rare to get a collection where so many of the stories are strong and these are. They are thought provoking, unsettling and often disturbing. They really stayed with me.

This is a mind-boggling, weird and wonderful collection of short stories and I really enjoyed it. We have a story told from the point of view of a curtain, a soon-to-be married woman who can't understand why her fiance doesn't want their wedding list to be full of furniture made out of people, a woman who thinks she's a robot and many more. My personal favourites were the titular Life Ceremony, which was very strange but also quite poignant and sweet, A Magnificent Spread, which was funny and unpleasant in equal measure and Poochie, which was just downright disturbing. There is a real blend of surrealism, horror and slice of life in this collection and I think it is my favourite of her books so far. I will definitely continue to pick up anything Murata puts out and would recommend this to anyone with a love of the weird.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review,

I’ve been wanting to read a Sayaka Murata book for ages now, as I’ve heard that her books are pretty weird and we all know I love weird.

This book is a collection of short stories that explores deep into social conventions and challenges social norms. Each of the stories is very short, feeling almost like an experimental thought, or a trippy dream-like vision. The stories are all very bizarre, daring, and a few are honestly pretty disturbing and unsettling. The underlying theme linking all of the stories together seems to be a fascination with the human body.

These stories take you on a journey through body horror, sexual curiosities, grief, love, and self-discovery. We had tales of wearing human skin and bones, chameleon personalities, eating human flesh, and even had a POV from a curtain whose owner had become enamoured with it. Prepare yourself for a wild ride with this book 😂

I found the writing and the stories to be equally disgusting but beautiful? Reading about a woman who feels a greater closeness to her friend once she’s eating his flesh in a variety of elaborate recipes, or about wearing your father-in-law’s skin as a wedding veil.. Like that’s horrific but it was also really beautiful and quite emotional weirdly 😅

This book won’t be for everyone. But I absolutely bloody loved it and cannot wait to read more from Murata, and buy myself a physical copy of this once I get home so I can re-read and tab all my favourite bits!!

I quite enjoyed some of the short stories in here. They where weird as hell, and parts of it did creep me out but overall was quite good.

Like everything else Sayaka Murata has written, this was phenomenal. Murata has a way with words that I feel is so unique and complex, yet so easy to understand and become immersed in. Life Ceremony is my favourite piece Murata has written so far, and I know I'll be reaching for it again and again as a comfort book. Absolutely excellent and I can't rate it highly enough!

»Normal is a type of madness, isn't it? I think it's just that the only madness society allows is called normal.«

After reading both novels of Murata, I was excited when these short stories were announced! From the narrative style, we get nothing new—but I simply LOVED the fact that all stories revolve around outsiders of some kind. Typical for Murata's work, we also get topics like cannibalism and recycling of human bones, teeth, etc., as cutlery, accessories or furniture. Some of the shorter stories weren't for me, but all in all I was very happy with the others. Recommend!!

If you've read any of Sayaka Murata's novels then you'll already know what to expect from her short story collection: weird, dark and unsettling. There were a few stories in here that were so bizarre that I didn't really understand what was happening by the end of them, but mostly I enjoyed them. It was interesting to see where some of the themes that ran through Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings may have originated. Overall, although the collection didn't blow me away, and I definitely prefer novel-length stories from Murata, I would still recommend this unique set of stories to any Murata fans.

A collection of 12 very surreal and unsettlingly stories. Murata definitely has an imagination. She seemingly takes taboo ideas around relationships, sexuality, food and the human body and spins her tales around these.

If you have a delicate stomach this collection may not be for you. That said, the writing is not gratuitous. Murata's style is detached and this results in writing that in less delicate hands could be seen just to have been written for shock value. There are things to be shocked at in these pages but then Murata seems to be leading the reader to reflect on how societal norms influence ideas of acceptability.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this title.

I was really intrigued in this collection from Murata, especially after finally reading Convenience Store Woman earlier this year, so I was very excited to get an eARC thanks to @netgalley and @grantabooks!

If there’s one thing I truly learned on this third adventure into Murata’s writing, it is to never think you know what to expect. Yes, the stories here are speculative and futuristic, and sometimes just frankly wild, but each in their own distinct way.

Favourites for me were A First Rate Material, A Magnificent Spread, Lover on the Breeze, and Eating the City - as well as capturing me while reading, I’ve kept thinking about these snippets of futures and lives and minds since.

Here’s hoping we don’t have a too-long wait until the next work from Murata to make it to us - she is one of the sharpest people writing today, and I really recommend Life Ceremony as a place to start if you’ve not yet read her work.

Sayaka Murata is an incredible writer. Primarily, the life ceremony talks about what is "normal" in society, things that are customary, and what is conventional and acceptable and challenges it. They are deep, visceral, twisted, challenging, and disgusting, and I love them. These stories are often of two types. A society is a strange place where weird, terrifying things are accepted and normalized but the characters do not partake, or a normal society where the characters are doing things that are taboo and scary. These stories really challenge what is normal, ethical, and moral. Murata's imagination is both terrifying and strangely satisfying. These stories often feel so far off from what is normal, but at the same time, not really, and the scariest thing is that Murata makes one believe this society we live in can do these things.

4.5/5

Thank you, NetGalley/Granta Publications, for this book in lieu of an honest review.

Life Ceremony is such a great read if you're into... a little weird. Sayaka Murata hits the spot on a very human, raw level with her strange short stories about loneliness and feeling like you're not part of society. I very much enjoyed it and look forward to reading more from her! This was a very different read from Convenience Store Woman and I can't decide which one I like best. Depending on how sensitive you are, you may not want to pick this up during your lunch break.

I'll preface this review by saying that I was not as bowled over by Convenience Store Woman as many people were when I read it last year. So I'm just maybe not the right reader for this author.

This is a collection of short stories which all focus on a societal norm, and subverts it to the point of absurdity. Which sounds fun. Why don't we eat humans, why don't we eat the weeds in the cracks of the pavement, why don't we keep middle-aged men as pets?

And there is a lot to like in this collection. Some stories were gross-out page-turners, and others actually quite thought-provoking. But as a whole, something felt off to me, as if the subversion was the main focus, and that shocking and repulsing people was the point of the stories. This isn't to say that the stories are bad, and I don't mind being a bit revolted every now and then. But the actual insights being made by the stories aren't particularly deep and are not what stays with the reader when the story ends.

Entertaining (if you like that sort of thing), but not meaty enough for me (maybe that's why we don't eat humans...).

This is a collection of short, speculative fiction, by the author of Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings. I have read Convenience Store Woman and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to reading more by this author. The topics of the stories range from cannibalism being the norm, a high tech human fertilisation/reproduction process, and a bedroom curtain in love with its owner (yes, really!).
The first couple of stories, although VERY odd, were entertaining, but as the book went on they strayed a bit too far into being completely bonkers for me!
For the most part, they tackle quite taboo subjects - the title story, for instance, is about the 'life ceremony' of friends and family making a feast of their loved ones after they die and this being the accepted custom.
I'd recommend to fans of speculative fiction, but with a warning that some of the stories are quite shocking!
The first part of the book was a 4.5-5 star read, but the later stories pulled down my overall rating to a 3.
Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC, which I received in return for an honest review.

The best bits in this short story collection are weird, gory, and uncomfortable. I LOVE Murata’s writing so I was very excited to read this e-ARC and the first chapter and the titular chapter are absolutely what I hoped for. Visceral, nasty, and full of sharp, dystopian insights about how our societies might twist and turns. I’d love to use the cannibalism and body horror chapters to discuss environmentalism, death, and waste in my classes.

Some chapters were less exciting and the pace and tone felt a bit uneven. Overall, I think this is the perfect one sit read if you can enjoy the gross surreal sections. I would absolutely recommend this book with the note that some stories are far better than others.

It's hard to rate this short story collection as I feel very differently about all 13 vignettes. They range from sharp and astute to imaginative and gross. Just like Convenience Store Woman, this book examines and breaks societal norms as well as explores our obsession with 'normal'.

I was rather enjoying this book until the titular story, which was unfortunately too much for my liking. Equally disgusting was Puzzle with its many descriptions of bodily fluids. However, I loved the ones about perception, stereotypes and conformity. Hatchling and its study of our penchance to fit people into boxes that we are familiar with was my absolute favourite.

Overall, a very thought-provoking read that I still need to stew in...

loved this book!
while it contained multiple stories i did prefer some more than others
but honestly it was really good. i have previously read convenience store woman by this author and i greatly enjoyed both of them.

"The custom of eating flesh has become so deeply ingrained in our society that little by little, I'm becoming less confident about what things were like before. But thirty years ago, when I was still in kindergarten, I'm sure it was strictly taboo."

A fascinating collection of short stories exploring the complexities of humanity and questioning our accepted norms and realities by putting forward a variety of challenging scenarios to explore the unimaginable. Some of the stories reeeeally hit and some were just confusing or a little too slow.

"'So anything with a name is a proper food?'
'A name puts whoever's eating it at east, doesn't it? Even a con man always gives his name'".

Sadly the compilation was not for me, regardless of the compelling look into non-traditional living circumstances, repurposing of deceased human material and what we, as societies consider the traditional and correct diet. A culling of a couple of chapters may have made all the difference.

Like all her books, it's eeriely good. Sometimes it makes me shiver and scared at how weird the storyline or plot is.

I look forward to all her books, Sayaka Murata has been an author that her works I'll auto read.
Really really good this one.

This is my first approach to this author, and as I finished this book I inmediatly bought a some of her other books to keep in touch with her literature. Sayaka Murata is amazing, the way she mixes japanese culture and creepyness, erradicates boundaries and redefines morals. Her stories are strange and grotesque, it’s full of body horror.

Once you start one of her stories you just can’t stop reading. Murata’s world feels like a dystopic one, a kind of uncomfortable journey to her mind. I must say I have my favorite stories:
- A first rate material
- Life Ceremony
- Poochie