Absolutely brilliant short story collection! Murata is a master of weird fiction, and these stories see her in excellent form, spanning tones which manage to hit the melancholy optimism of Convenience Store Woman and the grotesque determination of Earthlings as a host of new characters deal with questions of belonging, normality, and custom. Standouts for me are Life Ceremony, A Clean Marriage, and perhaps most of all the quietly unsettling Hatching.