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Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata

 

Keiko is a very unconventional 30-year-old woman. She has been working in the same convenience store for 18 years and shows no signs of changing. Her family wishes for her to get another job, and her friends are constantly asking her when she plans on getting married and settling down. But for Keiko these things are not important; her job at the convenience store is all that she needs to be happy.

 

Sayaka Murata crafts a book that is completely unique, and Keiko appears to be based on Murata’s own experiences as the author's profile reveals that she spent 18 years working in convenience stores before leaving to become a full-time writer. Keiko is a fun, quirky character who is unashamedly her own person. She cannot understand why people want to quit her job for something she wouldn’t enjoy or get married when she has no attraction to anyone as all she needs to be complete is her job at the convenience store. It just makes sense to Keiko, the way everything in the shop is arranged, promotional items that will sell quickly on certain days, even how the weather will affect who comes into the shop for business. However, Keiko is unable to understand social interactions, as when she was a child two kids in her school were fighting and others wanted them to stop so she hit one of them over the back of the head with a shovel. She was unable to understand why people were upset with her when she had, in fact, stopped the fighting. After incidents such as this, Keiko begins to mimic behaviours and speech patterns of those around her, which makes her a very efficient worker. Convenience Store Woman is an instant classic, which will keep the reader entertained throughout.



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