Definitely enjoyed this story a good deal more than the last one due to the easier language and more bizarre (and thus intriguing) subject matter. I agree that these stories don’t feel as “polished” from a writing standpoint as the other things we’ve read, but the elements are all there in a sort of “Murata Soup”. It doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to see how she got from here to コンビニ人間 or even 地球星人.
Considering so many of the themes and motifs in Murata’s writing are clearly autobiographical, it does concern me a bit that childhood traumas and sexually transgressive teachers seem to pop up so often.
That’s a pretty funny turn of events after your week 8 comment. I also laughed at 無理心中–it’s definitely my favorite new vocab word from this story. Perhaps it was ムータ who was doing the coercing 
. As to whether she could have prevented it, I’m not sure, but I do agree that there’s a strong parallel.
At the end of the story I felt like I was reading a horror book (although I guess Murata doesn’t hesitate to dip her toes into the genre now and then). 美佐子 and the protagonists mental diseases were embodied in these demonic stuffed animals.
I’m really excited to read 地球星人 again after having read more of Murata’s works. Even if these stories aren’t quiet as good as some of her others, I think it’s been a valuable experience seeing where she started off as an author.