Salsabila's book review : The Convenience Store Woman

 

Self-Identity ; the Voice of Keiko, Reflection of Society

By Sayaka Murata

Judul : The Convenience Store Woman

Penerbit dan tahun terbit : Grove Atlantic Press, Japanese version is in 2016, Grove Atlantic version is in 2018.

Genre : Slice of Life

ISBN : 978-0-8012-2825-6

 Pages : 176 

    Keiko Furukura, a 36-years old woman who works as a store clerk at Hiiromachi station Smile mart, she is known as a rather bit strange and unique woman, in her elemental school, she often caused problems and said unnecessary things, it distressed her parents and friends. Her parents expected her to find a proper jobs and gets married like the normal woman does, it adds to her anxiety and worries about her social conditions. As she grew older, she became a quiet, head -in-the-clouds university girl who is not good with interacting. But, her life completely changed when she stumbled into a convenience store named Hiiromachi station Smile mart. She stumbled across it when she lost her way and far from home, she saw a hiring advertisement poster that is posted on the window, timidly, she checked it out and decided to become a trainee, there, she tried to find her identity amidst societal expectations she suffered from.

 This novel uses light conversations and language style, making it easy to understand to even older people. This novel has 1 main character and 3 supporting characters, the first one is Keiko, she's the main and focus-on character, the second is Sugawara, her fellow store-clerk, Sugawara is a loud, cheerful 24 years-old singer who joined a band, the third is Iwaki, he's a tall and lanky university student who is in process of finding proper jobs, the fourth is Mrs, Izumi, she's the supervisor of the clerks in the store, while working, she also has to balances it with her housewife chores, Keiko thinks of her as a stern, but reliable woman.

  This novel is slice-of-life themed, it follows Keiko Furukura, a 36 years-old woman who works in Hiiromachi station Smile mart, she had a troubled past childhood, she has different persepective from her friends, labeled her as ' strange '. She lost her identity due to her social awkwardness, when she works as a part-timer in the mart, she only mimicked the expression of others, for her to usually hard to expresses her emotions clearly and freely. But in the middle, she began to learn how to do it by herself. Could she stays open and free for the rest of the book? For the messages or morals in this story is pretty easy to spot. Don't belittle yourself, find any connections and hobbies you like, if you still don't fit in the society, prove yourself to them that you are trustworthy of their time.

   In my opinion, this novel is pretty engaging and feels more alive, this lets readers contemplates deeper meaning and morale of the story, I'm sure that many people who suffered the same fate as Keiko has reads this. Sure it may seems dark at first, but I personally say that this novel is so good for heart healing. The Convenience Store Woman was written by Sayaka Murata and was released in Japan at 2016, Grove press translated it to English and published it at 2018, I've read other works of writer Sayaka Murata, such as Earthlings : A novel and Life Ceremony before, it was just as interesting as this one. 

I recommend this for young adult ( 13 ) to adult. It's not recommended for kids because it has mature issues like depression, and social awkwardness. The next is price, you can get this in any marketplace with a slightly high price ( dollars for outside marketplace ). But when I bought it, I got only as much as fifty thousand rupiahs ( RP. 50.000 ).

That's all from my review, happy reading!