Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Paperback, 163 pages

Published May 2nd 2019 by Granta Books (first published July 27th 2016)

Translator: Ginny Tapley Takemori 

Fiction

Library

This was short, short is glorious! I finished it in no time at all! Seriously, that is all I want in books these days.

Keiko is considered strange by her family, and she has donned the mask of convenience store woman and takes traits from those who work there. I'd say she ha a diagnosis, maybe Aspergers. She tries to be "normal". But friends think she should get married, others think it is weird that she still works as the store. She should get a real job. While I was all, step back people! She loves her job, and not everyone wants to spend their life with someone else.

The book has no chapters, it is a constant stream.

Some of the words on the cover just makes me go all wtf, critiques calling the book sexy? I mean what? The book is tragic and at the same time, well she loves it so why should the rest care.

A well written book (novella, wohoo). it made me want to read more by this author

Keiko Furukura had always been considered a strange child, and her parents always worried how she would get on in the real world, so when she takes on a job in a convenience store while at university, they are delighted for her. For her part, in the convenience store she finds a predictable world mandated by the store manual, which dictates how the workers should act and what they should say, and she copies her coworkers' style of dress and speech patterns so she can play the part of a normal person. However, eighteen years later, at age 36, she is still in the same job, has never had a boyfriend, and has only few friends. She feels comfortable in her life but is aware that she is not living up to society's expectations and causing her family to worry about her. When a similarly alienated but cynical and bitter young man comes to work in the store, he will upset Keiko's contented stasis—but will it be for the better?