Convenience Store Woman in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 25, 2019 Nadine in NY Jones rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, translation, women-on-the-edge, psych-psych-psych

I realize now, more than a person, I’m a convenience store worker. Even if that means I’m abnormal and can’t make a living and drop down dead, I can’t escape that fact. My very cells exist for the convenience store.

An oddly intense and compelling slice of life. I'd like to read more from Murata, I really enjoyed her spare, direct style. ...more

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Apr 16, 2020 Astrid Lim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, literature, asia, culture, lovely-heroine, novella, popsugar-2020

This is a very nice, well written compact book from a Japanese writer. The story is about Keiko Furukura who always feels that she is different from people in general. She thinks her calling in life is being a convenience store worker, and she doesn't understand why people can't accept her calling. She's not interested in pursuing a high level career, she's not interested in getting married or having children. But apparently, those are the things that her friends and family always asked from her ...more

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Feb 06, 2020 Tony rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: translated-fiction, novels, setting-asia, workplace

I don't have any special insight into Japanese society beyond a lone 10-day vacation and many conversations with various friends who have lived there. That said, from what I gather, the pressure to conform to social norms (at least in public) is far higher there than in the US. That pressure is at the heart of this slim novel (you can read it in about 2-3 hours) about a 36-year-old single woman who's been working in the same convenience store for 18 years.

Keiko is a difficult character to get a I don't have any special insight into Japanese society beyond a lone 10-day vacation and many conversations with various friends who have lived there. That said, from what I gather, the pressure to conform to social norms (at least in public) is far higher there than in the US. That pressure is at the heart of this slim novel (you can read it in about 2-3 hours) about a 36-year-old single woman who's been working in the same convenience store for 18 years.

Keiko is a difficult character to get a handle on because she is clearly an outsider in the sense that she really doesn't understand what "normal" human behavior is -- to the extent that her reactions in some situations are similar to someone along the autism spectrum. Some history of mental health issues is alluded to, but that's about it -- as for most of her adult life she seems to have been able to more or less fake it. Her work is the only thing that she cares about, and her devotion to the daily operations of her convenience store is kind of charming in a way. However, she has no real friends and has never had a romantic relationship. In both her personal and professional life, she is considered a failure by her family and high-school acquaintances.

A dramatic turn arrives in the form of a new store employee who inveigles his way into her life in a way that is both parasitic, but she realizes, perhaps mutually beneficial. The characters and situation are so extreme that it's hard to know to what extent one is supposed to take it as a satire or perhaps a metaphor for Japanese society as a whole. Whatever the case, it never really landed for me (and indeed so many reviewers describe the book with dreaded "quirky" adjective that I suspect it didn't land with many others either), and I was left with a "meh" feeling about it all. I suppose I'd be curious to understand why the book was such a hit in Japan, but I'd be hard-pressed to recommend it to anyone who doesn't already have a strong interest in modern Japanese culture and fiction. ...more

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