Life Ceremony is a short story collection, written by Sayaka Murata. This collection is a mix of horror, literary fiction and speculative fiction, some are gross, some are funny, all are pretty weird.
Quick Info
- Title: Life Ceremony
- Author: Sayaka Murata (Author), Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator)
- Publish Date: 30th October 2019
- Genre: Horror
- Sub-Genre: Short Stories
- What to Expect:
- Human remains used as objects
- Sentient bedroom curtains
- Identity crises
- Asexual couples
- Strange ceremonies
– Rating: 4 stars –
Trigger Warnings
Cannibalism, body horror, vomit, sexual content, mentions of seamen, death, incest, stalking, animal death, excrement.
If I have missed any out or you feel like something should be added, please leave a comment.
My Thoughts
This short story collection is a mix of literary fiction, speculative fiction and horror. There were so many memorable and well executed stories, considering most of these were 30 pages or less. I have included ratings for each short story because its hard to rate easily as a whole.
- A First Rate Material – 5/5
- A Magnificent Spread – 3/5
- A Summer Night’s Kiss – 3/5
- Two’s Family – 4/5
- The Time of the Large Star – 2/5
- Poochie – 3/5
- Life Ceremony – 4/5
- Body Magic – 2/5
- Lover on the Breeze – 3/5
- Puzzle – 4/5
- Eating the City – 4/5
- Hatchling – 5/5
- A Clean Marriage – 4/5
As a collection, this works very well. There are themes of sexual desire (or lack of it), identity, death and humanity, but from a surreal horror perspective. The stories were well paced and it didn’t feel like there was a part that I had to push through, as there was a nice flow to them.
If you want to see where this ranks alongside Sayaka Murata’s other translated works, you can read my ranking here.
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