Convenience Store Woman

A quirky sad slim novel, about how we're fitting ourselves into boxes in order to fulfill the norms and expectations society and other people are projecting onto us.

Keiko, the protagonist who clearly registers on the autism spectrum, finds fulfillment in her work as a convenience store clerk. The store's rules and repetitive tasks please her, by giving her life clear guidelines and goals. She copies other people's behavior in order to appear as human and normal as possible. Yet her friends' and sister's expectations of what the life of a woman her age should be like, weigh on her and she approaches it like a puzzle to solve.