Convenience Store Woman

LoveReading Says

What’s it like to be a woman who has no desire to marry or have children and is perfectly happy working in a Japanese konbini, a convenience store? 36-year-old Keiko is getting a lot of pressure from family and friends to find a husband. But Keiko is socially awkward, not prone to small talk. She finds comfort in her routine work and the store’s corporate manual, which tells her when and how to smile at humans and what to say to them to appear normal: “As long as you wear the skin of what’s considered an ordinary person and follow the manual, you won’t be driven out of the village or treated as a burden.” Continually struggling to avoid “otherness,” Keiko reaches a crossroad: must society’s definition of happiness be the same as hers? You’ll be rooting for Keiko to say “no” to societal expectations, as I was.

Guest Editor Alka Joshi

LoveReading

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