Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Convenience Store Woman is an unusual love story between a woman and a store. Would I recommend it? Yes, if only to make you think outside the box.

Convenience Store Woman is a short and quirky book about Keiko Furukura, a 36-year-old single woman who has worked at a convenience store for 18 years.

In the store, she learns to be normal, in the sense that she is told what and how to do things, as her regular behaviour causes people to look at her strangely.

Thoughts

I had to research what her condition was and realised that she was autistic, which made the things she did and said outside of what she knew society accepted make more sense. I mean, who thinks that a good way to shut a baby up is to take a knife to it?

Keiko lacks emotion and compassion for people and is considered a weirdo by society’s standards. She is being pressured to get a better job and get married so she can seem “normal”.

My issue is with Shiraha, who cries about the gender rules structuring society- women should get married, and men should be successful at work. Yet he is perfectly willing to live off someone and do nothing? Ha! So, someone else should do the work for you? It would never have worked if Keiko weren’t built like that.

If being a convenience worker is how Keiko can live without harming the world, then let her live it. After all, some people never get to be famous or rich but have impacted lives positively.

At least she has found her place in the world, but Shiraha, that banshee, is shameless!

Verdict

Convenience Store Woman is an exquisite book. I wouldn’t consider it a feminist book because some people are calling it that; she isn’t deliberately doing it to stand against society’s stance, rather, that’s simply what she is comfortable with.

Convenience Store Woman is an unusual love story between a woman and a store. Would I recommend it? Yes, if only to make you think outside the box.

It has been a while since a book confused and shocked me that wasn’t a thriller or murder mystery.