Convenience Store Woman
By Sayaka Murata, trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori
Publication Year: 2018 (originally published in Japanese in 2016)
Type: Fiction
Genre: contemporary
Read on 2019-03-12
View additional specs on this book in Muhan’s 2019 Reading Survey ➞
★★★★☆
Not a 5-star because it was frankly very unsettling to me. I read all the positive sound bites after and didn't really agree with how everyone found it super funny? I kind of read this a tinge too dark and satirical to be truly comedic. I also feel like neither those reviews nor the book itself really took on the very real experiences of people with Asperger's and autism, who don't exist to like poetically demonstrate how societal norms are bullshit. The main character also full on has psychopathic thoughts about killing people (including a baby) at several points but then the tone kind of dramatically shifts and ignores that aspect of her character. Like I was expecting the book to take a dark turn but then it went back to being this quaint and intense examination of societal norms.
Reminds me of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and does what that book did really well with the unreliable narrator not fully realizing how she is being perceived by everyone around her. Really does a great job illustrating the pressure on people to reach different life-markers re: family, career, etc. Also very interesting look at how social interactions break down essentially to mimicking one another's speech patterns and talking about those life-markers as a way to affirm one another's sense of belonging. The characters are generally not as likeable though...everyone apart from the main character is kind of shit, which gets tiring to read. And even the main character I had trouble reading because of the psychopathic thoughts and also just how intensely sad her life is. It's nice and short though so there's that at least.
See me review this book in this video!
