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Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

78 reviews

sophiaroesler's review against another edition

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challenging reflective
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candiemarsh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

If you're looking for stories that challenge the norm, this is one of the books to read. The collection of stories are dark, wild and triggering. They aren't for the faint-hearted and easily-queasy readers, and will provoke odd thoughts or question certain ideals that society has ingrained in us. But they aren't entirely illogical either; there are definite elements of a possible dystopian future but still includes some heart-warming moments. I enjoyed every story; "Life Ceremony" and "Puzzle" were personally the wildest for me.
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annagerman's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

Sayaka Murata's mind is such a wonderfully wierd place, like a parallel universe that is close to ours but utterly disfigured, situated somewhere in uncanny valley. 
Murata creates such bizzare and grotesque scenes, but with such ease and clarity, it's dissorienting.
I love her unique views on the subjectivity of morality and normalcy, human interactions and the weight of societal expectations.
My favorite stories were First-rate material, Eating the city and Hatchling. There were a couple more that were interesting or though-provoking. But as is expected in a collection of short stories, a few others just fell flat.

Usually what bugs me about short stories is that there is no time to develop the characters and explore deeper ideas. But with Murata, the abstract concepts and questions play a bigger part than the actual characters. Her characters are so bizzare and intense, that their belief system basicly defines them. So it actually works fine even in short story format.


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kvokolek's review against another edition

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reflective

4.0

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mellowbread's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Life must be tough for you – why not just enjoy yourself in this momentary world of lies?

I am so repulsed, uncomfortable, queasy, creeped out, unsettled, but this was so thought-provoking that it seriously deserves a 4 star. I’m convinced I’m not normal, and I’m also convinced no one is normal. But every short story made me think about it what is acceptable and how do we draw the line between borderline gross/disgusting and acceptance? 
 
My favourites, and my thoughts:
A First-Rate Material - I often recycle, but never in this way 
A Magnificent Spread - I’m vegetarian, which many people don’t understand. It also made me think about cultural appropriation 
Life Ceremony - What is normal if not decided by society?
I still don’t feel comfortable about cannibalism though
 
Hatchling - Everyone sees a different side of you, but this takes it to an extreme
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akira_outofthegravity's review against another edition

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

3.75

A series of short stories that have the same themes of Convenience Store Woman but with added fuckery. 

As someone who is an asexual lesbian I didn’t find a lot of the stories particularly disturbing, maybe that’s the point, but a lot of people found this to be crazy weird and while it was definitely that, it wasn’t as weird as I’d thought.

As in Convenience Store Woman, Murata talks about asexuality, aromanticism, life, sex, and the idea of not fitting into society. I enjoyed this collection! 

The highlights were:
Life Ceremony
Hatchling
A clean marriage
Two’s family
Poochie
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darumachan's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This was dark and both challenging and fascinating for me. Murata's characters tend to be neurodiverse or psychologically at odds with social norms; the characters typically are well aware that they do not fit in well with society, and they must each work, in their respective way, to decide what will be best for them -- to conform, to pass as best as they can, or to resist. The characters in Life Ceremony are no different; what makes Life Ceremony stand out from other works by Murata (such as Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings) is that the societies depicted in many of the stories of Life Ceremony are dystopian, and the friction that the character feels comes from how that imagined society is incompatible with and intolerant of what we might recognize as mainstream social norms and expectations of our current lived reality. This creates entry points for neurotypical readers to identify in new, and perhaps more visceral, ways with a "social misfit" character type, when in previous works the neurotypical reader would be forced to work harder to be empathetic to a character who might be distant, challenging, or downright repellant to mainstream society. 
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edgaranjapoe's review

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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

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yuyuv's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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withlivjones's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is a really interesting and unusual collection of short stories that celebrate weirdness. There were definitely a few that fell a bit flat for me but the ones that don’t - especially the stories that follow the central theme of food - are absolutely fantastic, bizarre and toe-curling. My favourites out of the collection are “A Magnificent Spread”, “Hatchling”, “Eating the City” and the titular “Life Ceremony”. This book is perfect for newcomers to short stories and avid readers alike, especially if you enjoy horror or stories that will make you say “what the hell did I just read?” 
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