Book Review: Convenience Store Woman

By Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Tags: Translated Fiction, Japanese, novella

I first heard about convenience store woman from * emmie *, a book tuber, who pointed out the juxtaposition of the quotes on the book and the tone of the book itself.

If you find the version of the book with the cover above (the one with the soy sauce fish) book reviewers will tell you how hilarious it is, making it sound like an all-out comedy. But that’s not what this is at all. Quirky maybe, but these quotes hide a more sombre thread that runs through this story.

Keiko Furukura is a 30-something woman who for 18 years has worked part-time in a convenience store and has never had a boyfriend. In any other story this would be about her finally breaking free and becoming the #girlboss of every 2000s romcom. But that’s not this story.

Instead Convenience Store Woman wants to show the strict social norms of Japan (and to be honest most other first-world countries) through the lens of someone who is anything but the “social norm”.

Kieko lacks the social skills that many other people take for granted. She copies the styles of other women her age by shopping in the same store but never buying the exact same things, to better hide what she’s doing.