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!

Yes, yes, yes! After a long time, a collection of short stories that I really enjoyed.

13 weird short stories. Most of them deal with some taboo theme or something strange to us, but in the story, this is normal. And in these stories, people who find this uncomfortable are unusual. We can read about diverse strangeness, from human parts used as clothes and furniture to unusual foods, families, and human pets. As expected, some stories are better than others. But I liked most of them, which is quite rare with short stories.

This was my second book by Sayaka Murata, and it sure won’t be my last.

Thanks to Granta Publications for the ARC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.

First of all, thank you Netgalley for letting me read this!

It is always terrifying reading new work by an author that you've loved in the past. I read Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, and loved them both quite a lot.

Thankfully, Sayaka Murata does not disappoint.

As always, I love her willingness to tackle such taboo subjects in her writing. I know that not everyone appreciates the weirdness of her storytelling, but for me, the way that she pushes boundaries is really what I want from a good book.

I was even slightly worried at first because I love her previous work so much, and I was not sure that reading her work in short story form would live up to what I expect from her. However, I'm now considering whether I actually prefer her short stories over her longer writing.
Her characters feel just as in depth in this collection, even though she has less time to flesh them out. I'm very much blown away.

Some of the stories in this collection leave you with more questions than answers, such as 'Poochie' and 'The Time of the Large Star', but I think it works so well. She knows exactly when to explain what is going on and exactly when to leave you slightly baffled.

I very much understand why some people, even if they enjoyed Convenience Store Woman, might not enjoy some of her more strange and surreal work, but I look forward to reading more in the future, and to discussing this book with my customers.

Thanks again, Netgalley.

As Life Ceremony happened to be one of my most anticipated 2022 releases, I was very happy to learn that my request for an arc was approved by its publisher. Sadly, it turns out that Life Ceremony was not the offbeat collection I was expecting it’d be. If you enjoyed Murata’s Convenience Store Woman but found Earthlings too grotesque, well, my advice is that you steer clear from her short stories. I loved the former and found the latter to be, if not enjoyable, certainly a striking read. Life Ceremony, on the other hand, feels like a rather forgettable collection of stories designed to disgust & shock its readers. Even the scenarios they explore are certainly weird, their weirdness was almost too predictable and samey.

As with her two novels, Murata’s short stories explore alienation, loneliness, humanity, and contemporary Japanese society. But, to be perfectly honest, Murata’s insights into these topics here feel banal and entirely derivative of her full length works.

While I was deeply dissatisfied by this collection, and I will certainly be avoiding her short-form work from now on, I do consider Murata to be a remarkable storyteller (even if this collection was, in my opinion of course, a dud). If you are interested in reading this and you are not put-off by intentionally & ott gross content, well, go for it.

I have been excited to read Sayaka’s other novels however at the present time I have been gifted with this one so Thank You to the publishers.

This novel is a collection of what I would call ‘What If’ scenarios on the theme of life and all the different possible versions there could be that you can imagine. We do indeed live in a dystopian world (Government controlled, what a pain) but novels include more screwed up versions that our minds would allow us to think.

From making use of human flesh so that nothing is wasted (some cultures are like this however this particular short story I read in this novel takes it to another level). The stories can be seen as so twisted but I was intrigued to see the types of thoughts and imagination another person could have. It also made me think about different versions as well.

Although some stories are a bit more difficult to listen to, it felt amazing to have a bunch of stories right at your fingertips of the alternatives that could be possible. It can be seen as disturbing but at the same time I kept wanting to get into the next story AND it could also be overwhelming.

Each story had a point and makes you reflect upon each one.