Convenience Store Woman is a Japanese novel written by Sayaka Murata and translated to English by Ginny Tapley Takemori. It is a story of thirty-six-year-old Keiko Furukura who works at a convenience store. Keiko has been a misfit since her childhood but once she finds employment at a convenience store, Smile Mart, she finds a purpose, a place where she fits in.

Keiko finds peace in her job. Once she starts working there, she feels that she has a place in society. She only perceives herself as a convenience store worker and her life revolves around her shifts. When the story starts, she has worked at the store for eighteen years and even as others take the store as a part-time employment, for her the store is a permanent employer.

The author has written the novel from the point of view of a person who is different. Keiko is not a typical woman, she finds herself different from others; she does not understand social cues; she takes in the speech pattern of her colleagues, dresses up like them and she finds herself awkward outside the store and her home.

Through the book, author Sayaka Murata has pointed out the faults of society we live in. How the society which is made by people and should be for people does not look too kindly upon anyone who is even least bit different from norm. Keiko is different and she knows and understands this. She mostly keeps to herself and rarely finds herself in social setups. It is much later she realises that even at the convenience store, she is talked about as something of an anomaly.

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

So that’s why I need to be cured. Unless I’m cured, normal people will expurgate me. Finally I understood why my family had tried so hard to fix me.”

The society expects every individual to follow its rules; study, then find a job, get married, have children and the fact that Keiko has not “settled down” makes everyone around her uncomfortable. This is something Keiko does not understand because she is happy with her place in the convenience store. In a way, the convenience store is the most convenient place for her to live.

The writing is good, it’s an easy read and takes a jibe at the societal norms and expectations in a light, almost funny manner. Keiko, despite being a little quirky, comes across as a likeable character.

My rating: 4.3/5

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