I’ve recently been on a Japanese fiction binge (see my blogs on The Convenience Store by the Sea and Butter) so used my August commute to read the short and, quirky and very enjoyable Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.

The protagonist store-worker Keiko has been in what everything else labels a dead-end job since she was eighteen, whilst her friends and sister have made careers, got married or both. She is therefore a misfit in a society with very clear rules about what is and isn’t acceptable, and throwing herself into making her unconventional workplace the best it can be just doesn’t cut it for anyone around her. She therefore has to learn what to say to confirm and is tolerated but not included by her colleagues despite, or because, of the excellent job she does.

When deadbeat misogynistic Shiraha comes to work at the store she can’t stand the casual, careless attitude he has to work or understand why he endlessly rants about gender roles in the stone age. And yet she sees that he could be a way to get everyone off her back.

This is such a clever commentary on the Internet Manosphere, what it is like to be different, the crazy logic of people’s relief that you are in a couple after eighteen years of being single despite the completely unsuitable partner you have found, the monotony of consumer capitalism, and the rigidness of societal expectations. A thoroughly enjoyable read that rightly refuses to conform in its ending. And a reminder of how much I also enjoyed stacking shelves and keeping things tidy when working in Boots the Chemist as a teenager.