A bizarre, intriguing, daring collection of stories exploring and challenging social conventions.

Each of Sayaka Murata's stories revolves around a specific, surprising or outlandish idea, like wearing human products, eating human flesh, chameleon-personalities or sex-less, clean marriage. We follow a main character (or a small group), as they live in this alternative scenario. The stories are mostly quite short, often feeling like thought experiments - some of them intrigued me more, some of them I vibed with less.

It has to be stated from the start, this is an unusual collection and the topics here are mostly bizarre, foreign and potentially unsettling. But I found some of these stories truly intriguing and fascinating, and I have to admire the author for her imagination and boldness. 'Life ceremony' is a great option if you want to be challenged and like your books to get you thinking (or frown in bewilderment). This collection won't be for everyone, but if you liked any of this author's previous works, you won't be disappointed.

Such a great collection of short stories! I can't really explain them as the best part of reading it was going in with no expectations and then having literal jaw dropping reactions as the unusual part of the story was revealed. Some of the stories seem to be set now, but in a slightly altered world with different customs, some seem to be set in the near future, others with an altered reality but all made me think about societal customs and expectations and how I'd react to the different situations. My favourites were "A First-Rate Material" in this world clothes are made from human hair, jewellery and furniture from human bones!; "A Magnificent Spread" about different food customs; "Life Ceremony"funerals are called life ceremonies and it is customary to cook and eat the dead person then go and have sex to create new life!. I doubt I will forget this one! "Poochie" an unusual pet two girls have a secret pet, a man pretending to be a dog!; "Lovers on the Breeze" about a curtain named Puff!

Murata is rapidly emerging as one of the foremost chronicler of that most modern of moods: awkwardness. Her protagonists are typically young women who struggle with relationships, jobs or family members and construct hide-outs in the margins of society, as in her debut Convenience Shop Woman.This collection of short stories could be sub-titled 50 Shades of Cringe, and to awkwardness of characters she somewhat deliberately adds a desire to make the reader feel awkward, though some startling body-horror. One story imagines a world where it’s perfectly normal to make light-shades, cushion covers or umbrellas out of human remains. There’s human beings as pets, a sentient pair of curtains, the somewhat predictable cannibalism as social rite of passage, and creepy medical procedures. Not every story hits its mark - some are just too brief -, but if you’re up for a reading experience that’ll ask you some awkward questions about conformity and normality, this is two hundred pages well spent. Actually 3.5 out of 5. A review copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the advance review copy in exchange for an honest review.


This collection of short stories is probably one of the weirdest things I’ve ever read, and I had a fantastic time reading it. I don’t remember the last time I sat and read a book in one sitting, but this short story collection had me hooked from the very first page. I also squirmed, grimaced, and visibly cringed at points because the stories cover a lot of quite frankly, disturbing content but at the same time, each story was captivatingly written. There are definitely some weaker stories in the collection but overall, I have to give this 5 stars for making me react so strongly to the content but still want to keep reading!

As with any short story collection, I enjoyed some of these more than others - a first rate material was probably a favourite by managing to be very different and thought provoking. I found I could only read one or two at a time though or they lost any impact as I was anticipating a shock or surprise.
Overall it was well written ( the translator deserves praise here) with some interesting ideas explored.
thank you to netgalley and granta for an advance copy of this book

Having read Sayaka Murata before, I got incredibly excited to see an ARC copy of her new book on NetGalley.

A series of unconventional stories that are the perfect amount of weird and wacky. They make you cry, laugh, smile. A really wonderful book!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Life Ceremony is a really interesting and intriguing collection of short stories. Having read both ‘Convenience Store Woman’ and ‘Earthlings’ by this author and enjoying both, I definitely think these stories are a combination between these previous novels. This collection of short stories concentrates on the absurdity of societal norms by blending elements of horror in some. In others it makes the societal norm itself the absurdity. For instance, in one story it focuses on the popularity of products made from essentially human remains. It subverts social norms in order to make us question our own, and it does this very well (did I mention human furniture?) The title story itself ‘Life Ceremony’ was so fascinating and again was unsettling (a common theme in these stories so be prepared). I really enjoyed the exploration of themes around birth, death, food, food preparation and the conversation around what is considered ‘respectful’ mourning. There was a sentence from this story that really stood out for me “Based on the idea of birthing life from death, this ceremony was a perfect fit for the mentality of the masses and their unconscious obsession with breeding". The stories take on lots of different aspects of everyday life birth, death, food, work etc and gives them a fresh twist. Overall, I hugely enjoyed this collection of stories, some of them have really stayed with me. They often made the mundane creepy and unsettling. I would highly recommend this collection especially for those who have enjoyed the author’s previous work.

My first read by this author and as its a collection of short stories I found it a bit of a mixed bag.
Loosely based around mind and body, its mostly stories about abnormal things that have become normal or stories of an abnormal person in a normal world.

The title story was probably my favourite(and one of the longest). Here the theme is that the world population has declined to critical level and instead of traditional funerals when a person dies, a Life Ceremony is held for the deceased where family and friends are invited to the ceremony where the body is cooked and then eaten by the attendees! They are also free to couple off and have sex to try and populate the planet to try to help the survival of the species!!

The opening story again deals with death but this time the human body and hair are turned into furniture, jewelry, clothes and anything else you can think of.

You get the gist of these strange tails. When they are good they are really good, with metaphors galore but I`m not sure a full, albeit, short book of these stories can keep my interest and attention.
I found a lot of the stories a little underwhelming and boring.

The ones that did stand out though did enough to pique my interest in this author and I would look forward to seeing what she does with a novel.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC through Netgalley.

Life Ceremony is very different!

I'm not usually a fan of short stories but this was really enjoyable, if a bit weird and gruesome. The stories cover a variety of themes including death, relationships, food.

I didn't know what to expect of this book but glad I read it

This was my first time reading Murata and it was not at all what I expected. There were quite a few really stand out stories for me, including the titular Life Ceremony, but also some they seemed really intriguing and promising but sort of went nowhere or ended quite abruptly.
Overall, I really enjoyed the collection and the subversion of various themes. If you enjoy weird, absurd, mild horror, I think you’ll enjoy this.

My review is based on an E-ARC kindly provide by @grantabooks and @netgalley

This is a collection of short stories by Sayaka Murata, and it has all the elements that has made her previous works so compelling.
She uses the macabre to raise some very interesting questions around, humanity, our way of life and how we treat our fellow creatures.
Sexuality is also a recurring theme in her writing, as well as how the crushing expectations from society can affect the individual.

Reading this I found myself jumping from mesmerized to shocked and appalled to sad, it’s a collection that manages to keep you engaged and entertained throughout.
A journey through Murata’s writings is a journey through humanity, and where we are headed.

As to be expected by Murata this book is filled with TW, mainly cannibalism.
But no matter how dark the subject Murata always manages to have a special kind of quirky charm over her writing, a truly fascinating feat!

As with all short story collections I have found my favorites, and these are the ones that impacted me the most:

“A first-rate material” is the story about a young women trying to come to terms with her fiancé’s reluctance to use products made of human remains. They live in a society where human hair, bones, teeth and even skin are used in jewelry, furniture and clothing.

“Two’s family” is a story about finding the right way for you to live your life, and the judgment that society may pass on you for doing so.

“Poochie” tells the tale of two young girls who holds a traumatized middle aged man as their pet in the woods.

The titular “Life ceremony” is peak Murata!
It’s a very macabre story that also questions what it means to be human. I won’t spoil to much from this story but the life ceremony is a ritual that the main characters from “Earthlings” probably would appreciate.

So put on your most colorful ensemble and get ready for the ceremony, I can promise you a wild ride😀

I don't mind strange, shocking, weird and grotesque stories, I actually enjoy them very much, so I wasn't put off by this book, on the contrary I liked it a lot. But be aware that if you're easily disturbed by strong topics (cannibalism, sex and such) then this book might not be for you.
If you don't mind those topics, then definitely give it a go and you'll find Murata is an excellent writer who explores contemporary Japanese society and themes like alienation and loneliness with a "Black Mirror" aftertaste.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ahhh Sayaka Murata. Back again with some non-conformist and truly absurd work.

I love Murata - I really do. And this new series of short stories packs as much of a punch as their novels do. I enjoyed it a lot! I think my favourite short story from this collection was Eat The City.

I'm excited for more Murata work in the future!

Maybe I am biased because I adore Sayaka Murata. But Life Ceremony is amazing.

With her usual whip-smart commentary and hilarious wit, Murata gives us a truly unique (and weird) novel. It's funny and strange and almost repulsive in some parts, but I loved every part of it.

I struggle with body horror and am a bit tired of the numerous recent short story collections that deal with women and their bodies (Julia Armfield's salt slow and Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body And Other Parties, for example, although I liked several individual stories from both these collections). Therefore, I should not have been a fan of Sayaka Murata's Life Ceremony, which features cannibalism, jewellery made from bones, and a woman obsessed with other people's body fluids, among other bizarre themes. But weirdly, a lot of these stories worked for me. I loved how Murata revealed the contingent, mandated nature of what is 'normal' in Convenience Store Woman, and this is a big concern here, as well. In the title story, 'Life Ceremony', heterosexual sex has become a sacred duty rather than a 'dirty' pleasure, and renamed 'insemination' because of the focus on getting pregnant. Murata gleefully satirises the unspoken rules that we all follow in our heads by spelling out the different rules that these characters follow. For example, when a woman returns to work after giving birth to her third child, she 'was greeted back in the office with a round of applause... "Good job, well done." Everyone was grateful for her having given birth for the benefit of the human race.' Later, our narrator muses on what societies must have been like in the past: 'There was a couple engaged in insemination on the beach. What would that have looked like back when it was still called sex?'

Another of my favourite stories from this collection was 'Hatchling', about a woman who consciously adopts five different personas from different periods of her life because it's easier to go along with other people's expectations. Much like Keiko in Convenience Store Woman, she's not too bothered which of these characters she ends up being, and when she plans to get married, bringing all her personas together for the first time, she asks her fiancé to pick which he prefers. At first, he's appalled that she has been 'dishonest' with him, but when she pretends to break down and reveal the 'real her', he's delighted: '"This is the real Haruka, isn't it? I'm so happy you decided to show it all, only to me. Thank you!"' However, in a twist that has shades of Black Mirror's 'Fifteen Million Merits', the 'real Haruka' is in fact a sixth persona that Haruka and her friend cooked up for this situation.

Other strong stories pick up on similar themes of convention, instinctive repulsion and what we believe to be 'natural'. 'A First-Rate Material' features the use of human bodies after death to make objects like lamps and sweaters, as our narrator tries to understand her fiancé's irrational dislike of this practice. 'Eating the City' and 'A Magnificent Spread' suggest that we can break down cultural barriers - but not too far - while 'A Clean Marriage' and 'Body Magic' mess with our ideas about sex. Two very short, paired stories - 'A Summer Night's Kiss' and 'Two's Family' seem to inhabit a sweeter, gentler world from the rest of the collection, following two elderly women who live together as what we might call 'platonic partners', confusing people who meet them, who insist that they must be lesbians. There are a few stories in this collection that just didn't work for me at all (for example: 'The Time of the Large Star'), but luckily, except 'Puzzle', they were all very brief.

Murata does things in this collection that I'd probably criticise in any other writer: clunky sentences, expositionary dialogue, spelling out some of her messages. However, somehow this all works with her overall purpose, deliberately putting us at arms-length from this constructed world and making us realise how weird our own world is. If you haven't read any Murata before, I'd suggest starting with Convenience Store Woman so you get a better sense of her project; but this is a great follow-up.

A surreal and sometimes grotesquely weird collection of short stories but in the best possible way. Vivid and visceral the stories touch on society and tradition through the lens of subjects such as death and cannibalism but aren’t just macabre but also thought-provoking. Thanks NetGalley!

I'm so grateful some of Murata's work has been translated into English! I loved Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings was one of the weirdest books I've ever read. I'm a massive short story fan so was thrilled to get a copy of Life Ceremony, her first collection to be translated into English.

I was surprised that not all of these stories were totally weird - however my favourites were definitely the weirder ones! I won't include any spoilers here but 'A first rate material' and 'Life Ceremony' were the two that have stayed with me the most. As an aside, I was reading 'Tender is the Flesh' at the same time and they were the perfect complementary reads!

I think if you enjoyed Murata's other works then you'll enjoy this collection, it's a nice mix of the quirky and weird but doesn't take things too far.

Life Ceremony is a unique, thought provoking book which will stay with me for some time. I have already begun to reference some of the stories in conversation and find the topics covered prompt interesting conversations.

I enjoyed the focus on unashamed and unconventional unions and an exploitation about how we treat dead bodies - I never imagined I’d be thinking about human skin being turned into furniture or eating a loved one’s ‘meat’ at a wake.

A couple of the short stories feel a bit like filler. Not to say they’re not good, but they don’t have the same punch as some of the stand out pieces. But that’s the beauty of a collection - I’m sure someone else reviewing may prefer ones I didn’t connect with as much over my favourites.

Highly recommend.

You know when you open up any work by Sayaka Murata, something spectacular is about to happen. This uncomfortably unique collection of short fiction pieces mixes the taboo, the awkward and the unspoken. In her undeniably distinct voice, Murata bends her own form of body horror into striking social commentary that morphs into the unexpected and undeniable.

With thanks to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is so close to being 5 stars, I had no idea body horror could be this fun. It’s grotesque, yes, but the internal logic of most stories follows a character regardless of first or third person narration either changing or feeling their society has changed. It’s the experience of alienation carried through all the stories whether vignette-snapshots or longer short stories like Life Ceremony (which lends its title to the collection) the characters always reach a solution - sometimes finding peace, sometimes revulsion.

What holds it back from that extra star for me is purely from a personal perspective that some end very abruptly (and yet the story has completed). Ginny Tapley Takemori translates again and each story is distinct from the one before, Sayaka Murata effortlessly spinning narratives by taking aspects to a logical conclusion - the way people are different versions of themselves with different people resulting in multiple personas.

I went into this aware the author had written about societal alienation and cannibalism in the past which may help with your expectations! I’m recommending this one to friends as I enjoyed almost all the stories in here and never thought I’d be able to read something like this - it’s not gory but the horror or the grotesque isn’t always normalised. So tempted to just reread!