Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

4 reviews

edgaranjapoe's review

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cannibalism, Sexual content, and Gore

Moderate: Death, Incest, Alcohol, and Vomit

Minor: Cancer, Acephobia/Arophobia, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Excrement, Homophobia, Stalking, Mental illness, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Grief, Infertility, Medical content, Animal death, and Blood

kymzii's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

Body Horror and Culture Shock
This is a collection of short stories that deal (somewhat metaphorically) with issues surrounding culture, food and lifestyle. However, it is the way Murata approaches these subjects that lift these stories out of banality i.e.

one story involves cannibalism and fertility rituals and another involves using dead human bodies as clothes and furniture.

Her tone is cool and removed and her characters seem a little closed off even when they are baring their souls. My one criticism is that some of her stories go nowhere and the collection would have been better without them e.g. the story where

a woman things she is a building (I'm still not sure what actually happened) or another when a woman is describing how she has a different personality with different friend groups (it just didn't go any where and her husband gets needlessly upset about the whole thing).

 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Cannibalism

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Vomit, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, Stalking, Grief, Gore, Excrement, Toxic friendship, Infertility, Eating disorder, and Cancer

georgiam06's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

As always with Murata - amazing writing and characterisation, could be much less cannibalism and incest

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest and Cannibalism

Moderate: Vomit, Cancer, and Terminal illness

Minor: Sexual content

ciancitt's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

I love Sayaka Murata, her weird stories, her willingness to push boundaries and suspend judgement. I love her detached way to tell a story; her style makes the oddnesses stand out, while allowing readers to make up their own minds. 

This short stories collection does, as expected, deliver her own brand of provocative stories and unapologetic characters - and I could not get enough. Murata takes you on a journey that examines society's biases, that looks at the inevitability of change, and makes you question our current practices. I particularly enjoyed how these women were (mostly) presented as unburdened by social norms, free to live their own realities - being perfectly aware (yet uncaring) of the fact they were at odds with others. 

Living in Asia, as a foreigner, queer woman, reading Murata is comforting and hopeful (you know, as much as one can find a story about a human-hair sweater comforting and hopeful).

Honourable mentions in the collection: Two's Family, Life Ceremony, Lover on the Breeze, Hatchling. 

ARC REVIEW (Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic)

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Cannibalism

Moderate: Death

Minor: Sexual content, Stalking, and Terminal illness