Convenience Store Woman

i loved this until Shiraha was re-introduced. i wish he had less ‘screen time' as i found it painstaking to read through his dialogue. obviously he's supposed to be an irritating character but to have so much of the book taken up by him felt like a slog, personally. i wish Keiko had shovel'd him the first night he stayed over. i was expecting her to have killed him by the end and to be honest i was hoping she would.
i dislike the timid autistic character be taken advantage of trope so I'm glad she prevailed in the end even if there was no comeuppance for Shiraha.
4 stars with 1 star for everything involving Shiraha's monologues rounds this out to a 3.
i think i might enjoy this more on a re-read knowing what to expect but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

“People who are considered normal enjoy putting those who aren't on trial.”

I think this is the perfect book for anyone who has felt like they needed to change just to fit the mould that society has made for them.

I think I chose to read this at the perfect time as a twenty-three-year-old who is trying to learn how to navigate through life. As an autistic person, this book spoke to me in the way of always feeling like a person on the outside looking in. The constant feeling that something is wrong with you because you know you act and see things differently than others is overwhelming and I believe it was the same for Keiko.

This was a quick, easy read and I enjoyed it.

“Even when I'm far away, the convenience store and I are connected.”

Omg, this book was actually SO FUN, and yet so provocative at the same time. I will say, though, I felt like this book is probably best appreciated by readers who have spent some time in Japanese, or minimally an Asian community and culture, because there was a lot of satire about the social structures, prejudices, and biases that are still fairly rampant in society and culture here. I also got bonus points of appreciation because Japan is probably my most visited holiday destination and I have an extremely vivid memory and impression of their convenience stores, and the visceral experience it is shopping in them as well as the almost robotic-like standard of service their staff never fail to emulate.

Keiko Furukura has always had trouble pretending to be human. It's not that she's an alien or anything, this isn't a sci-fi or fantasy book, but she's always had trouble understanding the underlying social codes, etiquette, and behaviour. She might be written to be autism-coded, but it's not definitively labeled in this book. In any case, quite often her thought process sounded like an AI going through deep learning to behave more like a human being so that she could fit into society. Despite this though, her narrative voice was personable, often relatable, and overall genuine and sincere in her wish to feel like an accepted part of society, as well as not to hurt the people she at least appreciated for having been kind to her in the past, like her sister.

“When I first started here, there was a detailed manual that taught me how to be a store worker, and I still don't have a clue how to be a normal person outside that manual.”

So, Keiko takes great joy in her job as a part-time convenience store worker, a job she has held for the past 18 years, since she herself was 18 years old. There is a very fixed set of rules guiding her behaviour, and she is valued for following those rules to a T. She enjoys how predictable everything is.

“It was fun to see all kinds of people... don the same uniform and transform into the homogenous being known as a convenience store worker.”

Despite finding joy and fulfillment in her job, she is still constantly being judged by her friends and family for “not being normal”, in that she is 36 years old and still in a “dead-end job” as a part-time convenience store worker. Without going into too much spoilery details, Keiko takes some steps to experience life as someone who is accepted into the fold of society.

There is definitely some satire and criticism here about the misogyny of society as well as the gender and sexuality stereotypes that is still deeply entrenched here. As someone who was born and raised in an Asian society, I think it hit pretty hard. It's easy to judge this book on more left-aligned values and find basically every other character in this book annoying except for Keiko, but I think it's a lot grayer than that over here. There's still a pressure to get into a relationship, to get a full-time job, to get married and have kids, even for me and even in this day and age. It might be a different experience from someone living in another country, especially if they were in USA or the EU, but differences in culture doesn't make any one culture less valid or more backward than the other. Anyway, being from a very similar culture to that of Japan, I could absolutely get the predicament Keiko was in and it hit much harder for me. There's also some commentary here about “normalcy” and how it feels like a performative act most of the time, just that for most of us it just comes more subconsciously than others (like Keiko, who has to make a much more conscious effort about it).

“The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of.”

Overall, I enjoyed this a ton but I'm not sure whether I'd recommend it to just about everyone. To anyone who is far removed from Japanese and Asian societies, this book might be quite bewildering and illegible (I hope it isn't, but I can imagine that it would be). Nevertheless though, it was quirky and had a sense of humour that had me chortling out loud at some parts, with a relatable and endearing though eccentric protagonist too.

I don't know how I was in the mood for this type of book. The last time I tried something similar (meaning slice-of-life, no angst), I couldn't get into it, but Convenience Store Woman pulled me in. I could relate to Keiko. We actually don't have much in common, but I could relate with society trying to 'fix' you, trying to dictate what you're supposed to do, projecting onto you, and I really loved the main theme of the book.

I liked Keiko very much from the start, I liked her peculiar way of thinking and doing things. Her method of doing things was very logical and she had a purpose and a path. Reading the book I loved discovering the way Keiko worked. Sayaka Murata really has away of drawing the reader in and getting the reader to care and be curious about what's happening. Highly recommend the book.

3.5 stars.

This short little book ??? just three hours in audiobook form ??? was interesting, if a little repetitive in places.

Japanese convenience stores have a somewhat legendary status around the world and, having never been to Japan, this setting was a big part of what drew me to this book. I did feel like I got a good glimpse into that environment.

While Keiko, the main character, is never explicitly described as being on the spectrum, she reads as an autistic-coded character as she has difficulty understanding social norms and actively masks to blend in socially. I liked Keiko and found her interesting, but most other characters, especially her group of girlfriends, came off as insipid and two-dimensional ??? though perhaps this is done on purpose, given the book's overall message, which I think is something along the lines of: there may be a “right” and “wrong” way to live according to society, but sometimes this is entirely at odds with what is right or wrong for an individual, and it is more important to follow your own path, regardless of what society may think.

Overall, I would say while I enjoyed this book well enough, it wasn't a standout. Had it been significantly longer I may have bailed before the end of the book, but since it was so short I felt I may as well finish it. Everything was tied up well, although the circularity of the plot made it feel like there wasn't much character development.

I get the point of this book but in the end I just thought it was a little... odd? I did enjoy Keiko's commentary on society and how everyone conforms to the same made-up rules though!

“As far as I was concerned, though, keeping my mouth shut was the most sensible approach to getting by in life.”

Keiko has always been different. Growing up she had problems understanding social norms, and her parents were concerned that she would always require an extra hand in life to get by. But soon after Keiko started going to university, she stumbled upon Smile Mart, a new convenience store opening up outside her train station. She was hired on, and spent the next 30-something odd years employed as a convenience store clerk. The same-ness of convenience store life appealed to Keiko, where there was an understandable pattern and flow to a workday. But everyone around her, from her parents to her friends to even her coworkers, felt that there was something wrong with her for not wanting something more for herself. Where was her permanent job? Her husband? Her kids? Troubled by this, Keiko decides to try and change these things about her to better conform with societal expectations... but things don't go as planned.

I really enjoyed the premise of this book! The thoughts and ideas the author puts forth about conformity and fitting in and “fixing” oneself were appealing to me, as was the description of Keiko's convenience store. Everything is the same, day after day, but not really when the product is constantly moving off the shelf and there's newness everywhere each day. This would have been a favorite of mine, if only...IF ONLY...Shiraha didn't exist. I know why he was needed in the story, but he was grating, he was dismissive, and his attitude really stunk. As soon as he was introduced and I saw where the author was going, I started losing steam in this book. Surely there were other ways of getting the same points across without having to read through his rantings about the Stone Age.

But this is a short book, and honestly the themes were really interesting to think about. As someone who is also in a part-time position voluntarily (but not for the same reasons), I identified with what Keiko was dealing with.

Short, unsubtle, and wonderful. I imagine many of us identify with the main character, some of us nearly 100%.

I'm impressed anyone functions in modern society at all.

Also, my beginner's level of Japanese tells me the original title is “Konbini Ningen” which translates to “Convenience Store Human”. Interesting they chose to gender it for the English title.

A lovely short story about how you don't need to conform to societal standards of normality and success to find your place in the world.

i sadly find myself relating a lot to keiko in that it feels simpler to shape your identity around your job & have that inform your personhood outside of work rather than figure out who you actually are in the absence of everything else, also with how she thinks of speech patterns & character traits with taking on parts of those you surround yourself with. i notice i unconsciously do that a lot as an autistic person, just mirroring what i'm seeing for the comfort of the other person

anyway i don't think it was intended to be taken this way by the author but think this speaks to a lot of autistic peoples experience living under capitalism. i can see where a lot of readers found it to be funny at points, & while i think the character of keiko is charming, i mostly just found it sad

I enjoyed it, it was very easy reading. I wish it had gone deeper into exploring her ‘flaws' in the eyes of society. I found the co-living situation veeeeeeery strange and borderline abusive. I like the overall message of the story and the writing style. I save my 5 star ratings for books that leave an emotional imprint on me, and this book just didn't.

Camus' The Stranger but the protagonist is a Japanese woman who works in a convenience store.

I really enjoyed the light touch of this novel.

Some of the ideas didn't quite click for me. I found her sense of alienation a little unfounded and I spent some time wondering if I missed an explanation for where she is spending all her money. The ending also felt telegraphed.

But I really enjoyed the cohabitation scenes with Shiraha and the mixed messaging from her family and peers that she struggled to reconcile. I also found some of the phrasing to be both jarring and beautiful, which was a fun sensation.

I find myself disagreeing with both the 1 star and 5 star reviews. On one end, I don't think it does anything so offensively bad to give it 1 star, but at the same time I don't think it gets anything further than being a cluster of interesting concepts that don't get realized into anything greater. The criticisms about mindless adherence to prescribed societal roles and the mistreatment of autistic people should have worked well enough with the main character and setting to make a compelling story that hits hard, but nothing ever gets developed to say anything more than what Shiraha yapped about the whole book. They remain merely as concepts explored shallowly to the end. The marriage plot also could have been interesting, but again, nothing really happens. To the end, nothing really happens. I get that much of that is the point of the novel, Keiko isn't meant to develop because the conflict is between her being satisfied where she is against society trying to mold her into something else, she doesn't like being a cog in that society, but she loves being a cog in the supermarket, so I guess it's about the hypocrisy of it all for society. The story reads like points that the author had to hit, along with commentary way too explicit and on the nose- we get it. She's a cog and they're cogs and we're all cogs. It's apparent in the story we don't need Shiraha explicating it in the same way literally every time. The most impressive thing I think is that her autism is never explicitly stated- and I'm glad. I'm glad the author intentionally left that out to show that society is so blind that the idea of people being different that even with her counselor visits, the idea of her being labeled as that isn't even an option. The author needs to make things less explicit and let the story tell itself.

i think it would have enjoyed it more if i hadn't read Earthlings first as there are similar themes mentioned; but i really liked the story and i felt very seen

Not sure how I felt about this. Strong prose but lilting pace, especially when Shiraha entered the narrative. I liked this but I also kind of think I should ne offended by this, and I'm also not sure it's quirky enough to warrant this high a rating.

I kinda want to get obsessed with convenience stores like Keiko

I think this is a book you need to be in the mood for to enjoy. I seem to be in that particular mood (curious looking for curiosity?), so I kind of loved it.

I'm pretty sure the main character is on the spectrum and whether or not this is an accurate portrayal of an autistic person's internal monologue, it made me feel so much empathy for her and how difficult society can be when you don't understand the “rules.” And to be fair, a lot of society's rules make absolutely no sense literally anyway.

I see this as is a character study (with some societal critique) and I really enjoy the growth the main character experiences, even in such a confined space of a sub 200 page book taking place primarily in a convenience store.

If you're looking for a relaxing read, with not a lot of things happening plot-wise, then this book is for you. The book centers more on Furukura’s character, and how her life is tied to the convenience store she works at. It's pretty slow-paced, a lot of dialogue, and a bit of commentary on the kind of societal expectations Furukura has to navigate through within the story.

This is the third work I’ve read from Murata Sayaka. And since I started, I found a sort of pattern with the characters she writes. It almost always has this recurring theme: a character, often the protagonist, is someone who is very different from the average person. Someone quite alienated with society. Someone “not quite human”. Not normal, by society’s standards.

The same still applies for this book’s protagonist, Furukura Keiko. She lives her life by the convenience store, relies on the store’s “moral compass” to help her navigate through the kind of society she lives in.

I'd say it's a pity that she lives like that, but, as in real life, other people actually *do* kind of live like that. The difference is, for Keiko, she is meant for it and it's something she wants.

3 stars for the actual book and one extra star because keiko is makes me feel seen (minus the violent tendencies)

Got me back into reading after a 4 year hiatus.

3.75.

Very interesting read.

3.5

POV of a woman who doesn't understand societal norms who just wants to work in a convenience store without judgement from her peers and sister, who all deem her to not be ‘normal'.

I almost didn't finish this book. It felt repetitive and mundane.