Book Synopsis:
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. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. 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…
My Review:
I had to read this book for school. I didn’t enjoy it very much. I’m giving it 3 stars because I didn’t hate it, but I also can’t really think of a lot of things I liked about it. It’s a really unmemorable book.
Like other books I've had to read in my English class this year, this is not at all a book I would pick up and read on my own. It's not a genre I like, and it's too adult for my interest.
This book was just boring. I get that it's a slice-of-life book and that's the point, it's just showing her daily life working at a convenience store, but the characters were boring, too. The characters didn't have big, fun personalities that made up for the lack of interesting plot. The only somewhat likeable character was Keiko, but even she was just copying the mannerisms of people around her.
I thought the book was just too much of a social commentary on society and gender standards and all that stuff. Keiko's whole thing is that she's unmarried at 36 and has still been working at the same convenience store for 18 years, so that means she's socially unacceptable to everyone around her. I feel like people aren't really like that as much anymore. In the past, marriage was a bigger social norm, but not as much now. Maybe the culture in Japan, where this book is set and was written, is still like that, but I felt like the author was trying to be too feminist through a book.
There was some pretty inappropriate stuff in the book, too. I hated how much they talked about sex and being a virgin as if it was the worst thing in the world Keiko was a virgin, and how nobody would ever want to sleep with her because she's so weird. It was all too much.
The only thing I kind of liked about the book was the ending. Keiko realizes that she is a convenience store woman, that's her purpose in life and what she's good at. She was happy working in a convenience store, it had become her life, and she didn't need to change.
Overall, this wasn't a great book. I wouldn't have read it if I didn't have to and I won't read it again, but it's also not the worst thing I've read. It's not a bad book, I can kind of understand why people praise it so much, but I didn't like it.
In terms of age rating, I'd say older teens and adults. I'm not an "older" teen quite yet and I thought some stuff if in this book was too inappropriate. There's also a lot of language, including one f-bomb, which is not good.
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