I bought this because I liked Convenience Store Woman and obviously didn’t read any description on it because I had no idea it was short stories. Would this have made me change my mind about buying it? Tbh probably not, Convenience Store Woman left a pretty big impact on me haha.

One thing that really stood out to me was the story order. It was really well thought out. Started strong with the story about repurposing human remains into luxury goods. The title of the anthology matches with the probably most impactful story. And the end story was kinda anticlimactic? 🤣

So I guess I realise what Murata’s writing focus is now, challenging social norms and expectations. That did come across in Convenience Store Woman, but on a much lighter level (expectations of a woman’s place in society). This book delves into death and sex a lot more.

Some thoughts on specific stories:

• My favourite was the story about Haruka and her multiple personalities. I guess the extreme masking aspect hit home for me
• The worst one was the Poochy story, too obvious where it was going and therefore not that interesting. At least it seemed to know it too and kept it extremely short
• The most curious one to me was the girl who named and fell in love with her curtain. I guess I just never really realised that was a thing (attraction to an inanimate object)
• The most normal one was the one about the highschool girl contemplating the meaning of ‘maturity’ when it came to sexual awakening
• The most heartwarming one was about the schoolfriends who lived together, had children separately but raised them together as a family, and how they struggled to communicate the nature of their relationship
• The funniest one was the food one. Also felt like the one that has the strongest ‘message’ to it 🤣

Categories: Book Reviews

Tagged as: Sayaka Murata

hikaru