Entry #4 Book Review Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata

Convenience Store Woman

Sayaka Murata

Convenience Store Woman is a book about a woman named Keiko Furukura who has already worked in a convenience store for about eighteen years which is her first and current job since she’s in university. Keiko always considers herself a strange kid, she has different and unusual perspectives about anything from the people around her. Thus, her indifferences make her family worried about her, so she tried to act ‘normal’ and speak less based on her behalf. Ever since she started her job in a new convenience store, she had to adapt to the workers' terms. The terms told her what to do, how to answer customers, how to act in front of the manager, or basically, it helped her cope with her issue.

She doesn’t have a normal life, so she creates her own ‘normal’ lifestyle. To fit in society, she has to act, think, and speak like them, making her ‘copycat’ others. She transforms her behavior into something more acceptable from her observation of others’ lifestyles around her. She wants to have a life that is as ordinary as others.

I really love this book ‘cause the idea of the main character as an ‘outsider’ in her own life makes it very easy to understand that we all are being alienated from our minds. Society has controlled people since day one, and it’s normal.

This book tells about people who have struggled with their true identity, so they choose to act like others to be accepted. It’s about individual self-esteem within a society their life in. People can have a normal life because they act, speak, and think exactly the same as others. What about people who have different ways of life? will they get banned from society? Maybe, they will. They mostly will be ignored and forgotten, just like what happens in Keiko’s life. She doesn’t have real a friend, a job, or even a life. Everything in her life is an adaptation from others.

She chooses to work in a convenience store for eighteen years because she knows it’s the best job for her, while others are thinking it’s not a real job. This job doesn’t suit an adult, doesn’t make big money, and doesn’t give stable financial income. But, from Keiko’s perspective, it is her best choice to work in a convenience store. She already knows what to do, how to speak, how to act, and how to respond in front of people. She feels familiar and safe without having to think about how to behave with others. Then, when Shiraha came into her workplace, she wants him to help her to convince her sister that she already has a very normal life. It’s normal when someone has a stable job and partner in their life rather than live alone in isolation. People, especially your family, will be worried about you ‘cause you are not the usual person.

Self-acceptance is the central theme here. Keiko wants people to accept her in society without judging her behavior or life. Sayaka Murata really did a great job of showing social issues that happen in our society, which people have to be ‘normal’ to get accepted in. It’s a light book, and I read this book only within five hours span, but the content is not light at all. It’s memorable, intriguing, and unique. If you’re looking for a book with those criteria, go get yourself a copy. This book is really worth to read.

4/5 from me!

Favourites Quotes!

I would longer do anything of my own accord, and would either just mimic what everyone else was doing, or simply follow instructions.

I just come in every day without fail, and because of that, I’m accepted as well-functioning part of the store.

After all, I absorb the world around me, and that’s changing all the time. Just as all the water that was in my body last time we met has now been replaced with new water, the things that make up me have changed too.

When something was strange, everyone thought they had the right to come stomping in all over your life to figure out why. I found that arrogant and infuriating, not to mention a pain in the neck. Sometimes, I even wanted to hit them with a shovel to shut them up, like I did that time in elementary school.

“And so, I realized. This society hasn’t changed one bit. People who don’t fit into the village are expelled: men who don’t hunt, women who don’t give birth to children. For all we talk about modern society and individualism, anyone who doesn’t try to fit in can expect to be meddled with coerced, and ultimately banished from the village.”