Convenience Store Woman

... I feel very conflicted by this book

update: ok, it's been 24 hours since I finished the book. so I gathered my thought on why this book annoyed me. in the beginning, I thought it would be a satirical take on society and its expectation for everyone to be “normal” through the eyes of a character that doesn't fit that label. but as the book goes on, this clearly seems to not be the case. Instead, it loses its footing by making “society” (all characters, not Keiko) look like some evil cartoon villain of conformity and the one character who does spend a lot of time with Keiko does not even actual her being a “human”. the fact that neither the character throws light on their environment and people in it, nor does that gaze turn around the otherwise and critique her makes the whole damn book very – pointless. It felt like a waste of time because I spent a short duration with the characters and their stories, only for them to not matter. If this is a larger nihilism-adjacent take the book was going on, then perhaps it succeeded but otherwise, it felt hollow, sad and pointless.

review from the night i finished the book:
the protagonist clearly needs some help, but literally, every other character feels like a caricature. I understand that the idea is to present that society demands conformity, but that doesn't really get through. it feels that everyone is an evil meddling asshole which really isn't an accurate or even remotely true reflection. plus, the male character's arc is non existent with just unhinged incel chats.

I find a weird form of character arc for Keiko with her “accepting” her job and realising that's her calling despite the external criticism, but if that was the end point, why not make the journey better?

there are elements of trauma that is dealt in a passing. the whole “relationship” was super abusive but was made to look like it was nothing?

I understand problematic characters, but a problematic gaze? that won't work for me. it's just a really “why this” book. unsure about the hype.