A review by darumachan
Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

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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