Book: Convenience Store Woman
Tuesday, 2 September 2025 23:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elusivek
Convenience Store WomanSayaka Morata, Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator)
Amazon Product Link
The English-language debut of one of Japan's most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura.
Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action…
A brilliant depiction of a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures we all feel to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.
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It sounds like the main character was simply on the spectrum and needed a very structured way of life to handle day-to-day things.
And it also sounds very Japanese-que (or Asian-esque) for the parents and people around her to be like “you gotta be cured!” Meaning for her to “conform with the norm!”
BS talk from the guy, so much BS I’d just shush him away for being sooooooooo disrespectful.
