The short stories found in “Life Ceremony”, present us with cannibalism, incest, chandeliers made from human fingernails, several very unusual approaches to sex and conception, and somehow once you’ve gotten through all of that, there’s still more to come.

All of the stories involve at least one outsider to a culture that would also be deeply unfamiliar to you and I. The collection opens with “A First-Rate Material” and which follows a woman preparing for married life in a world where human bodies are harvested for materials after death. After gushing to her friend about how she loves her beautiful and expensive human hair sweater, she visits a furniture showroom to select pieces for the home she will share with her future husband. Underneath the pink glow of the human fingernail chandelier hanging in the store, she laments the fact that she will be missing out on these creations as her fiancé finds the use of human materials barbaric (and is in turn seen as barbaric himself for being okay with wasting those materials). This was a good introduction to the collection, the titular story of with includes a society who partake in “life ceremonies” - a variation on the funeral that involves…eating the deceased before the guests pair off for “insemination” (in this case, insemination is shorthand for “having sex outside”) as an antidote to a population on the decline. This is likened in the story to cockroaches laying a large amount of eggs immediately before death before being eaten by other cockroaches.

Humans becoming more animalistic is a theme that carries through much of this book as well, along with cultural eating preferences. Without throwing too many spoilers out at you, “A Magnificent Spread” tells us what might happen when strange and unique cultural dishes are served up to important guests from out of town as a young woman who believes she originally had another life in a magical city that may or may not exist prepares to host a dinner party for her future in-laws. My personal favourite from the collection is “Eating the City”, the protagonist of which begins eating meals cooked with wild vegetables and weeds collected from around Tokyo after reminiscing about time spent in the countryside with her family. Over the course of the story she views herself as growing more wild, exploring that idea of becoming more animalistic that appears in a few of the other stories.

There are some true gems in this collection. I will admit that my favourites were the less gruesome stories, but the thoughtful and philosophical approach taken to those themes got me through them easily enough. I think that I would recommend this collection to more or less anyone who isn't turned off by the themes being explored.

I’m not a usually a big fan of short stories but I loved Life Ceremont. I don’t think Murata could write anything I wouldn’t like. As usual, her trademark weird meets piercing observations of society. I will devour everything she ever writes, for all eternity.

I’ve absolutely adored Murata’s previous novels. She has a way of taking the ordinary mundane of life and interweaving the unusual and weird that makes us question what we view as normal. Nothing exemplifies that better than we collection of short stories that range from the relatable to the uncomfortable.

However, as short story collections usually are, there are some stories that are better than others. Murata has some great concepts and I wish more of them were fleshed out and explored. The human furniture is one that comes to mind, as I feel it ended too soon or wasn’t taken far enough. Others were way too short, or not memorable at all. So very hit and miss, but I’d definitely recommend it because when Murata had a hit it hits hard.

I loved these short stories which built on the weirdness and subtle body horror of Murata previous two novels. By pushing against what is acceptable to society to the extreme in her fiction Murata deftly reveals the strangeness of social mores we have accepted as the norm.

What to say about this book?! It’s a collection of speculative fiction short stories, with a theme of life and the celebration of life running through then. I enjoy the author’s writing style but I didn’t love all of the stories. There’s quite a lot of intimate/sexual content and while not being a prude at all, I’m not a huge fan of reading about it. The stories that spoke on a more human, interpersonal level were, however, thought-provoking and definitely very enjoyable. On the whole, this was a good book that I would recommend.

This short story collection is delightfully weird. I have to say firstly, if you have emetophobia and are going through a rough patch with it, give Puzzle a miss.

My favourite stories were the titular Life Ceremony, A First Rate Material and A Magnificent Spread (although the conclusion of the latter was somewhat heavy-handed). I really enjoyed the way Murata explored social alienation and food culture. Her exploration of how we deal with death and dead bodies was also very interesting.

Probably not one for the squeamish, but I really liked it.

If you thought Sayaka Murata was done with cannibalism after Earthlings, well Life Ceremony is going to come as a rude awakening.

A series of short stories, which allows Murata to focus on individual issues she's interested in, be it sexless marriages, the concept of family, what we do with our bodies after we die, having sexually relations with your curtains or eating people. Through the absurdity of her own ideas, Murata is able to turn the table on our own world and point out the absurdity of the world we live in.

Murata blends comedy into horror into a profound questioning of the human condition.

On the down side it really does feel like nothing new, these are all ideas covered in Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman and this collection kind of feels redundant, like they were written before her two novels.

Overall this was enjoyable, but not the tour d force I expected from Murata. A rather disappointed 4 stars.

An engaged couple falls out over the husband's dislike of clothes and objects made from human materials; a young girl finds herself deeply enamoured with the curtain in her childhood bedroom; people honour their dead by eating them and then procreating. Published in English for the first time, this exclusive edition also includes the story that first brought Sayaka Murata international acclaim: 'A Clean Marriage', which tells the story of a happily asexual couple who must submit to some radical medical procedures if they are to conceive a longed-for child.

Mixing taboo-breaking body horror with feminist revenge fables, old ladies who love each other and young women finding empathy and transformation in unlikely places, Life Ceremony is a wild ride to the outer edges of one of the most original minds in contemporary fiction.

“Life Ceremony” by Sayaka Muraka is a wonderfully put together selection of short stories celebrating the bizarre and unusual. I fell in love with Muraka’s writing with her previous bestseller “Convenience Store Woman” - I adored that book. There is something so simple yet so appealing about her style of writing (think Murakami). In short, she’s a breath of fresh air and whilst short story collections do not normally appeal to me, I couldn’t have turned this book down. It’s not for everyone - I think you’ll either love Muraka’s writing or you won’t. I just love and applaud the fact that she writes what she wants to write and deviates from what society may call conventional. If you’re looking for an easy read and magical realism is your thing, then this is worth checking out. Anything this author puts out in the future I will be scrabbling to get my hands on. That is the power of the Convenience Store Woman’s creator and of course, Life Ceremony itself.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an arc in exchange for an unbiased review.

This collection of short stories were bizarre, disturbing and yet thought provoking.

The title story "Life Ceremony", for example is about a world where following death there is a ceremony where friends and family eat the body, and then couple off and hopefully make new life. Murata deals with this in an interesting way as the narrator remembers a time when cannibalism was not acceptable in Japan, and can't quite get her head around the concept.

Many of the stories seem to address identity and confusion around it, albeit in an slightly disturbing way. They won't be everyone's cup of tea but it's a great collection of dark tales.

Thank you Granta Publications and Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. I really enjoyed Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman, I quite liked The Earthlings, but with Life Ceremony I just didn’t realise how unsettling it would get. It does lists horror as one of the genres for this collection, so next time I’ll be more wary of that. Cannibalism was a bit too much for me in The Earthlings, here it’s mentioned again. Clearly, the bizarre and grotesque/disturbing themes and descriptions have purpose to talk about society, what’s considered normal (in the past, now and might be in the future). It was just too much. But it is purely subjective. In any case, this book leaves an impression.

An anthology of short stories from Sayaka Murata (of Convience Store Woman fame), a writer who enjoys pulling at the threads that unravel many of the shrouds placed upon us all by society and 'tradition'. Whose tradition? Who does it benefit? What happens when we don't fit into the mould required of us by these traditions? Life Ceremony will have you fumbling with these questions and much more as Murata guides us through and peels back the curtain.

"I mean, normal is a type of madness, isn't it? I think it's just that the only madness society allows is called normal"

This was my first read by Sayaka Murata and I will definitely be hunting down some more of her works as this was the perfect mix of eerie and taboo that I was hoping to read. Each of the twelve stories held a different sort of theme (for example, parenting, the meaning/purpose of sex, nature, society) and I enjoyed how each was explored in its own niche way.

First Rate Material remained one of my favourite stories - immediately getting me hooked within the first page, talking about a sweater made of human hair. The way this was so casually mentioned had me both disturbed and intrigued and this feeling remained with me throughout each short story.

My other favourite was Body Magic because the imagery was so bizarre and unique - describing offices and other people as different organs made me feel a bit ill which is very unusual for me and I really enjoyed it purely for the fact that I have never read this sort of narrative before.

Some of the stories I found quite lacking - for example, A Magnificent Spread felt like it had great potential for being disturbing or surreal however never quite met its mark.

Regardless, each story found their place and held the same eerie undercurrent of something being out of place in a contemporary Japan and I really enjoyed this theme. It makes me question our own society's norms and customs with Murata challenging each one with an alternate reality of what we currently consider taboo, as the norm, and how this may shape the future.

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

Life Ceremony is a collection of weird short stories. Some get under your skin and creep you out. Some make you think about how we live our lives and question what we see as right and how this changes over time. Is it us that change or society that makes us change how we see things. Really interesting collection of short stories.

More grotesque, bizarre, oddball explorations of alienation, social norms, fitting in and accepting difference from a master of the oddball and grotesque. Featuring cannibalism, sentient curtains, human pets, and a woman who believes she is a building, Murata remains as strange and uncomfortable to read as ever.

Once again, Sayaka Murata made a piece of work (or many in that case as it is a collection of short stories) that is fascinating, disturbing and not so far from reality sometimes.

What I love about this author is the way she grasp moments from another perspective, another angle and sometimes from a point that a lot of people might miss in reality or never think of.

Some of these stories might make some people uncomfortable, starting with the first one about human bodies after they die. But it isn’t that far for the truth or the world that we live in right now. All her stories somehow questions modern society. It really showed me how ridiculous the world we live in as well as what we call ‘social standards’ can be sometimes

I find her witty and poignant. A little quote that that stayed with me:

‘I mean, normal is a kind of madness, isn’t it? I think it’s just that the only madness society allows is called normal’

I would recommend this book and this author. I just loved the few books I have read from her, I like her writing, and imagination.

Thank you to the publisher, Grove Atlantic, for an early copy of this book for review via Netgalley.

brilliantly creep and well written 😊 I really enjoyed this I found it to be disturbing and just exactly what I was looking for in a horror

This is a really thought-provoking collection. Sayaka Murata has a way of shifting the ground beneath your feet without you really noticing. Suddenly you look around the fictional landscape and realise it works in ways you really hadn’t considered and these ways reflect on the real landscape and make you question your assumptions there too.

Most of the stories have domestic settings that look at the finer details of relationships between couples, close family, friends and coworkers. What humans eat, wear, fuck and what is considered normal or acceptable, is Murata’s territory, from a world in which people are turned in useful objects at their death - ‘A First Rate Material’ - , to a world in which it is normal to eat the flesh of the recently departed as part of a life ceremony in which the old life gives birth to the new as people couple off and copulate in the streets - ‘Life Ceremony’ - every story introduces an element of the unfamiliar into the meticulously observed detail of daily life. It is the stories that humans tell that justify their behaviors and make them acceptable to others. We can understand how children might care for a dog that is really a middle-aged salaryman (‘Poochie’) but can we understand grown-ups admiring human bone wedding rings (‘A First Rate Material’), or two women living together and bringing up children as friends, not lovers (‘Two’s Family’)? Where does our ability to accept cultural shifts end? What is reality?

This investigation of shared truth is one that I delight in.

In ‘Life Ceremony’ one of the characters talks about loving Disneyland. He says, “Nobody ever mentions the person inside the cartoon-character costume, do they? Everyone’s lying a bit. That’s what makes it a dream country. Our world isn’t any different, is it? Everyone keeps telling little lies, and that’s how the mirage is created. That’s why it’s beautiful - because it’s a momentary make-believe world.”

When asked by the protagonist what that makes the real world, he says, “It’s the mirage that’s real. All our little lies are gathered together and become a reality that you can see only now.”

It’s an idea picked up on in ‘Hatchling’ where the main character is nervous of her upcoming wedding because she doesn’t know how to hold a ceremony in which all of her friends from different settings - school, college and two different jobs - will be there expecting a different version of her. In each situation she behaves differently, has a different nickname and even speaks differently. How can she be all of these things at once without seeming insincere? How can she unify all these personalities, all these sides of herself, sides that evolve from simply responding to the expectations of those around her? Is she lying about who she is to each of these different groups, or can she be all of these people at once? Perhaps a new personality is needed to make sense of all of these combined?

Stories and consumption are the survival musts of a collection that questions the nature of the individual and how individuals come together to form societies and cultures. It’s a fun and unnerving set of stories sure to enchant.

Wow! I don’t even know where to start. Whilst I enjoyed most of the short stories, I felt that a few of them fell flat.
If you’re planning on going into this book with the idea it’s like convenience store woman you’ll probably be disappointed. If you prefer earthlings however, this is the book for you! Very bizarre and occasionally gross.
Thank you so much for this ARC!

Thank you so much for allowing me to read this collection early! I have loved Sayaka Murata’s writing since ‘Convenience Store Woman’ and this did not disappoint. All of these stories have the ability to portray the uniquely human experience through her characters’ strangeness. As always in Murata’s writing, this collection is delightfully weird, at times skin-crawling-ly good and others heartwarming to the core, and sometimes even both. Absolutely loved reading this collection piece by piece and I can’t wait to read what she comes up with next.

3,5/5 🌟
Oh wow. What did I just read? I have no idea but I very much enjoyed it.
Delightfully weird and charmingly twisted, "Life Ceremony" takes us on the most peculiar ride to meet strange characters from a strange world that could be, well, ours. Some stories were more impactful than others - most of them were very disturbing though so maybe not for the faint hearted. Highly recommend for the lovers of weird sci-fi dystopian-esque literature