“When I first started here, there was a detailed manual that taught me how to be a store worker, and I still don’t have a clue how to be a normal person outside that manual.”

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori!) follows the story of a woman who has been working at the same convenience store for eighteen years, since she was eighteen years old. Keiko’s job consumes her life, everything she does is for the convenience store. Eating and sleeping simply fuel her to work to the best of her ability, she keeps herself looking put together because it makes her a good employee, she learns how to socialize properly to be a good employee and coworker. 

As expected from Murata, this book was weird. I liked the discussion about what people consider to be normal and how poorly people reacted to Keiko’s “abnormal” life that she was perfectly content with. I rooted for Keiko all along and could not stop turning the page to find out if she was going to succumb to societal expectations, do what she likes, or become a murderer e.g. “Earthlings” by the same author.