Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata.

I am fascinated and enthralled by Murata's writing, impossible to categorise and so dark and original. I loved Convenience Store Woman and enjoyed Earthlings. My feelings on her collection of short stories probably falls in the middle of my ranking of her previous books I have read.

I do think short story collections are best enjoyed when they one dips in and out of them but I read this from start to finish over a couple of days. I think I would have enjoyed them more had I not yet I couldn't help reading it quickly. There were several I really loved, especially Life Ceremony and Hatchling and there were a couple that I didn't like at all. Some bordered on too graphic for me and others failed to grip me. So overall an uneven read for me. Yet in the main, her dark and quirky writing style kept drawing me back.

I will buy this in paperback when it is released and revisit, reading more slowly, I think these stories are worthy of a second read.

The translation was effortless and the book read perfectly.

Conflicted on this collection but would recommend and I am interested to read other peoples thoughts .

3.5 rounded up to 4 stars.

Sayaka Murata is a genre on her own. She defies the shackles of what is and what isn't supposed to be and the end product is always sensational. I literally gasped when I recieved this arc because I heard nothing but praise for her previous work "Convenience Store Woman" and although due to the lack of time I wasn't able to pick it up, I am grateful I got this arc to join the hype and yes, Murata's writing is no joke. Poetic, hilarious and an amusing mixture of the mundane and the absurd, the short stories definitely make you wonder how unreal, eerie and yet creative the author is. My favourites were definitely "First-Rate Material", "Life Ceremony" and "Lover on the breeze". A quote that stuck with me is "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".

I adored these stories. On the scale of 'Convenience Store Woman' to 'Earthlings', I would say they veer towards the latter. In other words, be prepared for taboo defying, line-crossing explorations into the darkest corners of the human psyche. Murata's work is suffused with a profound sense of alienation; an unease and detachment from what the broader public considers 'normal' and commonplace. These stories pick apart our customs, traditions and rituals, casting them in new and grotesque lights.

what a bizarre and thought provoking collection of short stories. thoroughly enjoyed this but what a rollercoaster... odd in the best way

i like how the author sees the society and the world— it's certainly very interesting, though often unsettling and disturbing. it can be strange and gruesome, but the way the author executes these ideas are fascinating. as someone who likes social psychology, i like how Sayaka Murata explores conformity, norms, alienation, social beliefs, and self-presentation (among other topics) through food, nature, and relationships. i also like how Murata evoked a sense of hysteria in readers (me) with the way they approached the topic in every short story. it was horrifying but refreshing, and i like how this book changed the way i see the world a little bit.

here are my ratings for each story:
a first-rate material - 3
a magnificent spread - 3
a summer night's kiss - 2
two's family - 2
the time of the large star - 2
poochie - 3
life ceremony - 4
body magic - 2
lover on the breeze - 2
puzzle - 3
eating the city - 4
hatchling - 4
a clean marriage - 1

my favorites are life ceremony, eating the city, and hatchling. the first two involved food and the human body, and they were very imaginative and unlike any story i've read before. hatchling involved self-concept, self-perception, and self-presentation, which are all concepts in social psychology. it was interesting to read abt the change of behavior and attitude of a person based on how people perceive them and attribute traits to them. my least favorite story is clean marriage, because while interesting, i did not like how the story grouped pedophilia with asexuality and queer identities.

this is the first Sayaka Murata book i've read, and i will definitely read more of her works in the future. i'd recommend this for people who are in the mood for strange, unconventional stories that would challenge the way you perceive society and the human body (and it's definitely not for sensitive and narrow-minded people).

Life Ceremony is a collection of short stories that is every bit as off-kilter and visceral as her novel Earthlings. There are lots of innards, lots of food, lots of sex (or no sex at all), lots of bodily fluids. Sometimes all at the same time…

Twisted and brilliant.

Life ceremony is a collection of 13 short stories.

The good: each of these tales was very well written and encapsulated exactly what it was trying to convey. A predominantly female cast throughout these stories built some great relationships between characters and we had some whimsy, some really creepy elements and some deep and meaningful thought provoking stuff here.

The themes throughout look at gender roles, celibacy, sexuality/asexuality, parenthood, friendship and a lot of insights into what is considered “normal” and why.

The bad: a lot of the stories felt like an exercise in creative writing. “What if a girl ate weeds” or “what if your curtain was sentient” became the building blocks of a tale with no real pay off.

I individually scored each story as I went, and while the titled ‘Life ceremony’ took a 5, only one other tale managed to get as high as a 4. For the most I scored an average of 3, so this is what I rate the book as a whole. Wasn’t blown away, but a book worth reading.

This collection certainly fulfils one of the aspects of literature in making the reader see things afresh, looking at the ordinary in a different way. Sometimes shocking, and slightly uneven in success, each story is disturbing and challenging. I suspect that fans of the author’s popular Convenience Store Woman might find this a tough read.

A young woman begins to collect dandelions and other weeds from around the city to eat and gradually finds herself more drawn to the world of soil than that if the human animals around her, another attends the funeral of a boss where the norm is now for mourners to gather to eat the carefully prepared and cooked body of the deceased. Beforehand they discuss how tender he may be and how they will skip lunch to have room to enjoy eating him.

Strong stuff, but I felt challenged and overall felt that this is an interesting and unique collection. Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a review copy.

This was interesting! Life Ceremony was my first Murata read and I certainly want to read more by her, she has an incredibly captivating style of writing. While this one was a little too graphic for my personal liking, I can appreciate the way she held my attention, even through short stories which I often have trouble enjoying. Definitely a little weird, a little unsettling, but an entertaining set of short stories.

REVIEW: Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

Life Ceremony is a collection of short stories translated from Japanese by the author of Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings. 12 stories that are weird, and sometimes horrific.

Sayaka Murata definitely has one hell of an imagination, that’s for sure! These stories were really weird. The stories focus on the outsiders as they defy the norms and traditions of the society, they live in. This collection is the first book I have read from Murata, which I think was good as I feel like I’m only going to enjoy her novels more as I am much more of a fan of long form. Some of these stories were really interesting and others didn’t do much for me.

My favourite stories were ‘A First-Rate Material’, where a couple are engaged but the Naoki is repulsed by the convention of using dead people’s bodies for clothing, accessories and furniture which his fiancé is a fan of, ‘Hatchling’ which is about a woman that has so many different personalities as she tries to fit in with all the groups of people in her life but has no personality which is authentically her own, ‘A Magnificent Spread’ which explores the foods that people enjoy and how everyone’s normal is different, and the title story ‘Life Ceremony’ which follows a woman that doesn’t partake in the part of a person’s Life Ceremony where you eat the deceased which made me physically gag on the train.

Overall, a collection which is very weird.

Twelve stories from Japan, tales about love, food, relationships, life and death. Sayaka Murata offers a mix of stories that raise questions about how we live, what we consider acceptable and more than once goes beyond the red line of our comfort feeling. It is not always easy to follow the characters, to dive into Murata’s world and not to be appalled but to remain open minded. The author does not specify if the plots are set in today’s Japan, at some point of the future or in an alternative reality, it remains for the reader to decide. Having read “Earthlings” and “Convenience Store Woman” I already knew that the author has a talent to reaching my emotional limits and this she succeeds again with her stories.

Some of the stories left a deeper impact on me than others. Among them the one that also provided the title for the short story collection, “Life Ceremony”. The idea of eating human flesh was beyond my imagination even though I liked how the protagonist was drawn and her emotions transmitted.

Food in general seems to be a topic in Japanese literature, after recently having read “Butter” by Asako Yuzuki, I already had the impression that the sensual aspect is something that plays an important role, maybe because a highly controlled society does not grant itself the luxury of such feelings.

Relationships, types of families also are touched upon several times, can two women qualify as family and can a couple experience love without ever having intercourse? The stories invite you to ponder about many questions and to scrutinize your position and attitude when it comes to the deviation of the common.

A wide range of short insights into lives that move unnoticed among people even though they are at the fringe if their nerves.

Really not my cup of tea, parts of this were quite disgusting and I struggled to read this. However, I know many people would enjoy the weird and wonderfulness of this book and I'd recommend everyone gives it a go, Sayaka is a very unique writer but, while I enjoyed Convenience Store Woman, I personally think this was just a little too far for my taste.

I have read and enjoyed Sayaka Murata's work before, earthlings being a five star read for me but this short story collection by her takes what she accomplished in Earthlings to the extreme, I did enjoy the collection but the constant focus on the more gruesome elements of her story telling, the cannibalism & the use of human body parts as furniture took it a little too far for my stomach at times.

Review - Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

Rating - 3.75 Stars
Out July 14th!!

I discovered Sayaka Murata through booksta and I'm so glad I did as I was a big fan of Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings so when I heard about this one I was super excited for it. Life Ceremony is a bit different - it's a collection of short stories that mix between horror and dystopian vibes. As with all collections of short stories there were come which I really enjoyed reading and some that I didn’t like at all (which if they were a full book I would probably dnf).

Some of the stories will really make you think 'what the hell did I just read' making you feel all sorts of emotions and at the end you're really left to think about what it would be like if you lived in that world.
Murata's writing style is unique and you're fully transported into those realities whether you'd like to be or not. She loves writing about the complexities of the human race and always aims to challenge the social norms and push boundaries.

A few of my favourite stories:
A First-Rate Material
An engaged couple falls out over the husband's dislike of clothes made from human materials
"I would never stop caring for my body, knowing it would someday be converted into furnishings. I would always feel that I too was a material, that I would continue to be put to practical use after I died. The thought that this was a marvelous and noble process was deeply rooted within me.

A Magnificent spread
All about different cultures and people judging other peoples foods - whether that’s insects, futuristic diet food, or thinking you're from another planet and eating 'alien' food.
"what people eat is part of their own culture. It's the culmination of their own unique personal life experiences. And it's wrong to force it on other people. The things you can learn from each meal!"

Life Ceremony is all about celebrating death and doing this by honoring the body of the deceased by preparing their body for the life ceremony and then procreating "Guests at a life ceremony would eat the deceased's body, and also seek an insemination partner among the other guests."

In other stories a girl becomes enamored with the curtain in her childhood bedroom, a girl keeps a human as her pet, an asexual couple has to submit to radical medical procedures if they are to conceive for a longed for child, and a daughter moves in with her dad to find out his isolated village never sleeps and only come out at night,


This book was gifted to me via NetGalley. Thank you Granta for the ARC :)

This book is incredibly unique, with a lot of short stories that each have their own touch of unique and weirdness to them. I would give this four stars but there were some parts I found a bit boring and weren’t for me, but nether the less a charming read!

I enjoyed these short stories. The prose is tight and the themes were cleverly expressed. I liked the skin story best. It's the first book I've read by the author and I'll definitely read move.

Japanese fiction is basically some of the greatest fiction in the world at the moment. Authors like Yoko Ogawa have really brought out the shine in the strange whilst also borrowing writing style from the Golden Age of modern Japanese literature (authors such as: Yukio Mishima and Junichiro Tanazaki come to mind). Japanese literature is not only on the rise, it is also on the change as well. Moving away from the once twisted humanist storylines, it makes its way into the modern day with Sayaka Murata's Earthlings, and Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police. I have found that Sayaka Murata's newest text, a book of short stories called Life Ceremony, follows this brand new tradition that I sure hope to see more of.
In Sayaka Murata's twisted style which earned her the reputation of one of Japan's great modern writers in the minds of literature nerds everywhere, Life Ceremony has twelve short stories. Each of these stories has some sort of strange extended metaphor. The titular story, something uncomfortable and raw, is read with brief moments of fear and disgust. But, it makes sense at the end. The story Life Ceremony is about eating the flesh of the dead to increase the rates of conception. I found this story incredibly relevant as Japan's own conception rate seems to be dropping as we speak. Is this Sayaka Murata giving us a lesson in life and death and what it means to replace life with life? An absolutely brilliantly written story, this echoes the messed up nature of her previous and powerful Earthlings.
When it comes to themes, Sayaka Murata is never short of ideas. Everything from modern Japanese themes to more international ideas are discussed but, all of them are relevant as ever to our lives today. The story Eating the City deals with the idea of 'not enough resources' for the population we have as an underlying message. The story is about foraging and yet, we see the deep discomfort of the people in that situation as one of very first points of recognition. The way we connect with her stories is that we recognise the deep-seated fear of the characters, and yet their inability to act against it. The other thing we can recognise is the exact opposite. We recognise the normalacy of the characters in these extreme and rather harsh situations. It makes Sayaka Murata fit into both sides of the coin.
Sayaka Murata's style has always made an impression on me ever since I read Convenience Store Woman. I think her writing style is extremely deep but the one thing I love is the intense amounts of symbolism. Symbolism seems to be a big thing in Japanese Literature with one of the most famous symbolist writers being Haruki Murakami and his symbol of the cat. But, Sayaka Murata does something slightly different. She doesn't use one symbol to symbolise things, instead she uses many symbols that all fit into the same category, for example: the act of eating, foraging and then we have cannibalism over a couple of stories in order to symbolise the same idea: requirements for survival. This message of 'requirements for survival' however, has a different meaning in each story. I think that is extremely clever.
In conclusion, Sayaka Murata may just be Japan's next great writer next to Yoko Ogawa. Her writing is uncomfortable, symbolic and relevant and she is able to write the reader's fear into the text so well you will not even notice yourself becoming afraid. It is a brilliant set of short stories and as her debut anthology of short stories, I think it is an incredible effort.

"Why not enjoy yourself in this momentary world of lies?"

Much like Muratas last book, this collection of short stories deals with the hardships of modern life and then adds the extreme circumstances. I loved Muratas last novel and I loved this one too, every story is the height of crazy and much like Earthlings this will have an instant Marmite reaction (you'll either love it or you'll hate it).

I find her way of interpreting birth, eating, sex and death, in these intense stories, ask way do we have such a visceral reaction to such things. Whatever it is, it's certainly not forgettable!

I was so excited when I was approved for this review copy!
Sayaka Murata is an incredible and thoroughly enjoyable author. I adored her two previous publications which were both five star reads for me
This was no different. Her ability to weave the unreal into the ordinary is like no other. I loved in particular the short story with the Earthlings throwback. The Life Ceremony story was completely bizarre yet believable and also I enjoyed the first story about human hair/bone etc.
I'm so happy I got to read this and I would recommend this to anyone! Well, if you're willing to leave reality at the door and take her writing at face value. Loved it!

This is a collection of short stories by the author of Convenience Store Woman. This explores society, its taboos and cutoms and does not make judgments.