Convenience Store Women is Japanese Author Sayaka Murata's tenth novel and her third novel to be translated into English. You would of thought that this was her first novel seeing all the praise she received for the 176 page book. She won the Akutagawa Grand Prize(A literary award where the winner receives one million yen and a Pocket Watch.) in 2019. Murata has been say to work part time at a convenience store herself which inspired the novel.
Keiko Furukura has been working at a Convenience Store since she was in university. She doesn't look at life the same way as others in society and always concerned others around her for being a strange child. This is her story of how she fights to live in the society of Japan where you are forced to conform to the normal stages of live as a women.
Convenience Store Women opens as the pages describe to the reader Keiko's background as a child. Her story might be very tongue and cheek for the reader. I found her story kinda of fun then very strange as I read on. You could describe the character as more of an Alien living in a world that doesn't understand her. Its not so much that the character doesn't understand the world around her. instead, she has a warped mindset of how things should work. Because Keiko doesn't have the ability to connect to emotions that normal people would, she tries to mimic the people around her in order to fit in with everyone else. The way Murata choose to describe Keiko taking on the voices and mannerisms of each person she works with in the convenience store freaked me out a little bit. This character basically took on the role of each person around her as a mixed up personality of her own. I would go as far to call her a mimicking Alien who didn't have much of a normal personality as you stripped all the personalities she collected away. I did however like how the convenience store made Keiko more humane since she cared so much about the well being of the store itself. There's also a big spike in conflict she runs into towards the end of the book dealing with society pressure to be what some Japanese people feel was a normal way to live. Women have more pressure placed on them than men in Japanese culture but Murata created a character that was a black sheep signalizing change in how women can take control of their own lives no matter what anyone has to say. She makes a last minute decision at the end of Convenience Store Women that drives the nail deep in the coffin of "normal ideas" to realize where her happiness truly lies. My favorite part of Keiko's character was when she was hit by the cold harsh reality that the people she worked with weren't as invested into the convenience store as she was. Or how quick those people turned on her when she became the topic of the gossip in the store. Yep. Some people seem to get along well with you until you realize they might have been laughing and talking about you behind your back. That's how life is sometimes. Let those people just talk though…. Don't always be willing to entertain them. Not everyone is worth addressing.
You get a very detailed look at what it's like to work at a Convenience Store in Japan. Story wise, I found myself wanting to keep learning more so I kept turning the pages. Murata sets up an atmosphere in her writing easily repainted in the mind of the reader. You see through the text how the employees set up the store and how early they must began before the store opens. I can't forget the training of mannerisms used when engaging with a customer. Japanese life breaths in the actions of the people involved in the store to the point that I could feel the presence of customers coming into the store through the automatic doors as they swung open, letting people in.
I would a hundred percent recommend Convenience Store Women to people who are interested in novels from East Asia like I am. Readers who want a new look into Japanese culture will also enjoy this novel. At only 176 pages, This will be a quick and sweet read depending of how fast you finish books.
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