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rnbhargava's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This is about the psychology of a woman who’s worked at a convenience store inside a Metro/Subway station for much too long. It leaves quite an impression given it’s only 163 pages, not counting the short afterword essay by the author. You see the character struggle with things and expectations from childhood to adulthood. It’s fascinating and also kind of tragic. Well worth a read.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Stalking, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, and Classism
This short book is largely about a character that feels perpetually maladjusted and has used long term part-time work in a convenience store as a coping mechanism. It’s fascinating and tragic. Well worth a read.robinks's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I really enjoyed this short novel. As someone who used to live in Japan (and is currently visiting!), so many of the little snippets of convenience store happenings were super nostalgic. I also enjoyed the larger commentary on conformity and what is deemed “normal.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Misogyny, Sexism, Acephobia/Arophobia, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Classism
Moderate: Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Stalking, and Pregnancy
Minor: Chronic illness, Rape, and Sexual content
kat_a's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A lovely slice of life novella for a summers afternoon or long car ride. Perfect for winding down in the evening too. :)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming and Misogyny
Moderate: Bullying, Chronic illness, Infertility, Rape, Sexism, Medical content, Stalking, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Classism
Minor: Cursing, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship
laurenbaggy's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny and Gaslighting
Minor: Animal death, Chronic illness, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship
clovetra's review against another edition
challenging
lighthearted
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Sexism, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Chronic illness, Cursing, and Stalking
markwillnevercry's review against another edition
3.0
It was a kind of a good book? It is all about your purpose and your role in society. However, I did feel uncomfortable while reading a big part of it. I know that it is intentional and that Shiraha is supposed to make us feel uncomfortable, because he is so crazy, but it did not make this the best reading experience. The jury is still out on whether or not Keiko is just autistic and asexual, but the bigger point is that she found her place in the world, but that does not satisfy people around them. It would have been nice seeing this story entirely without Shiraha, it seems like there would have been other ways to evolve the situation into her being made less of a convenience store worker by people in the store and that leading her to a crisis of identity, but this is the way that the writer decided to go through with it and I did not enjoy it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Misogyny, Sexism, and Acephobia/Arophobia
Moderate: Chronic illness, Infertility, and Stalking
erebus53's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I was recommended this book by Abigail Melton Munday on the Autistics Worldwide Facebook Group. This is not a person I know, but as the group is public I feel OK naming them.
Seemed like a good idea to read a few titles in aid of Autism month.
The first thing that struck me about this book was how the sales pitch on the cover was completely wrong. As an Autistic reader, perhaps I have a different take on it, but I don't think it's witty or hilarious. I'd go with interesting and perhaps thought provoking. It's definitely much more funny (oh.), rather than funny (ha ha!).
My Japanese is quite sketchy, but as someone who ran the anime club for about a decade I was fairly culturally literate. This is a story set in Japan, and some of its "oddness" is Japanese, and some is neurological. It wasn't until the end of the book that I heard the original title was コンビニ人間 (Kombini Ningen - or convenience-store person). Looking up the Kanji for the protagonist's name, I was amused to find that it could indeed be considered a pun as, I have been told, is common in Japanese literature. Alternate readings of the name "Furukura" do have different meanings and though it could be commonly read as Old "River", it could also be read as "Hideaway", "hiding place" or "storehouse". This is an apt name for a girl who learns early in life that if she acts intuitively, her ways of doing things will get her into in big trouble. She instead becomes someone who masks herself behind walls of affectations and habits learned by copying the "normal" people around her.
This characterisation was interesting to me in a couple of ways. The first is that this girl is depicted as feeling justified for violence. In my experience, denying regret for childhood violence used when you are in the middle of a panic or urgent situation, is less about being remorseless and more about protecting yourself from being criticised. Engaging with negative self-critique can be really difficult when you don't even understand your own motivations. She clearly has some failure to understand the emotions of others, but her disdain for others at times borders on not just Autistic, but callous. Some writeups online suggest that the character might be sociopathic, but her rigid attention to rules and guidelines and her disinterest in lying or manipulation has me convinced that she's Autistic. I do find it a little problematic that this Autistic child is depicted as creepy and dangerous.. but at the same time, it's realistic to demonstrate the fact that when people don't understand you they may want to keep away from you.
The thematics of this book seem quite tongue in cheek. It's a commentary of the cultural ideas that we take for granted. You are an inhuman weirdo if you dedicate yourself to something you are an expert at, passionate about, but that also confers low social status. You are expected to selflessly find a man to dedicate yourself to the service of, maintaining your looks, cooking and cleaning, and bringing comfort with a calm and positive demeanour for the benefit of your household.
But, that's basically the same thing.. only with one of them you are required to also be a bedslave, and if, like this character, you are asexual, then you also come up against the influences of those who tell you that you are not good enough, and that you need to have a baby to be a valid contributing woman within a society.
Keiko feels pressured into finding a human male to affect a relationship with so as to keep the people around her happy with her. As she becomes more and more aware of the masks she feels she has to wear just to have human contact, she realises how false her friendships with others are, and how unwilling they are to accept her. The talk of Curing her difference hit me like an emotional fist. It's been so many years since I faced a person in my sphere who thought I was unworthy because I was strange, and it brought some of that memory back.
Some of the most moving parts in this story for me were Keiko's sense impressions of the Kombini. I know exactly what it is like to sense your environment through its sounds, and the clues and patterns that hint what your next interaction will be. I feel with my house. I am in tune with its rhythms and sounds in much the same way. I know when pets need feeding, and when the traffic will be loud, or quiet. The act of getting off public transport a block before your stop I immediately understood as a chance to figure out what the mood of the day was; is it likely to rain?, is a special event on?, are there roadworks?, will people feel energetic, or low?.. all these would affect the systems in the shop, and the hypervigilance that she channels into managing those systems felt SO familiar to me. Recognising patterns like how a person's body language or sounds can tell you what method of payment they might use, cash or card. Yep, this is how I interact with my world.
I think this book packs quite a bit in for a short read.
Seemed like a good idea to read a few titles in aid of Autism month.
The first thing that struck me about this book was how the sales pitch on the cover was completely wrong. As an Autistic reader, perhaps I have a different take on it, but I don't think it's witty or hilarious. I'd go with interesting and perhaps thought provoking. It's definitely much more funny (oh.), rather than funny (ha ha!).
My Japanese is quite sketchy, but as someone who ran the anime club for about a decade I was fairly culturally literate. This is a story set in Japan, and some of its "oddness" is Japanese, and some is neurological. It wasn't until the end of the book that I heard the original title was コンビニ人間 (Kombini Ningen - or convenience-store person). Looking up the Kanji for the protagonist's name, I was amused to find that it could indeed be considered a pun as, I have been told, is common in Japanese literature. Alternate readings of the name "Furukura" do have different meanings and though it could be commonly read as Old "River", it could also be read as "Hideaway", "hiding place" or "storehouse". This is an apt name for a girl who learns early in life that if she acts intuitively, her ways of doing things will get her into in big trouble. She instead becomes someone who masks herself behind walls of affectations and habits learned by copying the "normal" people around her.
This characterisation was interesting to me in a couple of ways. The first is that this girl is depicted as feeling justified for violence. In my experience, denying regret for childhood violence used when you are in the middle of a panic or urgent situation, is less about being remorseless and more about protecting yourself from being criticised. Engaging with negative self-critique can be really difficult when you don't even understand your own motivations. She clearly has some failure to understand the emotions of others, but her disdain for others at times borders on not just Autistic, but callous. Some writeups online suggest that the character might be sociopathic, but her rigid attention to rules and guidelines and her disinterest in lying or manipulation has me convinced that she's Autistic. I do find it a little problematic that this Autistic child is depicted as creepy and dangerous.. but at the same time, it's realistic to demonstrate the fact that when people don't understand you they may want to keep away from you.
The thematics of this book seem quite tongue in cheek. It's a commentary of the cultural ideas that we take for granted. You are an inhuman weirdo if you dedicate yourself to something you are an expert at, passionate about, but that also confers low social status. You are expected to selflessly find a man to dedicate yourself to the service of, maintaining your looks, cooking and cleaning, and bringing comfort with a calm and positive demeanour for the benefit of your household.
But, that's basically the same thing.. only with one of them you are required to also be a bedslave, and if, like this character, you are asexual, then you also come up against the influences of those who tell you that you are not good enough, and that you need to have a baby to be a valid contributing woman within a society.
Keiko feels pressured into finding a human male to affect a relationship with so as to keep the people around her happy with her. As she becomes more and more aware of the masks she feels she has to wear just to have human contact, she realises how false her friendships with others are, and how unwilling they are to accept her. The talk of Curing her difference hit me like an emotional fist. It's been so many years since I faced a person in my sphere who thought I was unworthy because I was strange, and it brought some of that memory back.
Some of the most moving parts in this story for me were Keiko's sense impressions of the Kombini. I know exactly what it is like to sense your environment through its sounds, and the clues and patterns that hint what your next interaction will be. I feel with my house. I am in tune with its rhythms and sounds in much the same way. I know when pets need feeding, and when the traffic will be loud, or quiet. The act of getting off public transport a block before your stop I immediately understood as a chance to figure out what the mood of the day was; is it likely to rain?, is a special event on?, are there roadworks?, will people feel energetic, or low?.. all these would affect the systems in the shop, and the hypervigilance that she channels into managing those systems felt SO familiar to me. Recognising patterns like how a person's body language or sounds can tell you what method of payment they might use, cash or card. Yep, this is how I interact with my world.
I think this book packs quite a bit in for a short read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Bullying, Mental illness, Xenophobia, Stalking, and Acephobia/Arophobia
Minor: Chronic illness
kaziaroo's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
[minor/vague spoilers ahead but it's not a plot-heavy book]
I have mixed feelings about this as although I enjoyed it, I really wish it had gone in a direction where Keiko could have found labels for her differences (such as autism, or even just neurodivergence, and aromanticism/asexuality), other than seeing herself as a creature made to work in a convenience store. She then could possibly have found others like herself and potential support for her future (there was never really a resolution to her concerns about what happens when her body can't keep up with convenience store life anymore). I guess it's just not the route the author wanted to go down but I feel like it could have said more about the lack of representation and acceptance for people with these differences, rather than focussing on societal expectations – it seems the author wanted to straddle the line between a story about capitalism and shallow societal norms, and one about the life of an undiagnosed neurodivergent and aro-ace adult who has never met anyone like herself (and as an aside, Keiko definitely wants this, as shown by her disappointment in how the store manager suddenly became "a human male" after he started recognising her as a "normal" person). As someone for whom these latter issues are very important already, I don't know how much these would have come across to a reader who is not familiar with them. I worry that people might read it and just think that Keiko is weird and that's that – at least Eleanor Oliphant had a "rational" reason for her difference whereas Keiko just concludes that she isn't human, which isn't great representation for neurodivergent and aro-ace people. So maybe it's best that she wasn't given those labels! Neurodivergent people are too often wielded as quirky and convenient tools for pointing out how weird society is, for better or for worse. On the plus side, Keiko is very self aware and comfortable with her differences, and it's only the attitude of the people around her that make her doubt herself. Overall, I enjoyed the book and it gave me lots to think about (as demonstrated by this rambling review) but it also left me feeling a bit disappointed/uncomfortable.
I have mixed feelings about this as although I enjoyed it, I really wish it had gone in a direction where Keiko could have found labels for her differences (such as autism, or even just neurodivergence, and aromanticism/asexuality), other than seeing herself as a creature made to work in a convenience store. She then could possibly have found others like herself and potential support for her future (there was never really a resolution to her concerns about what happens when her body can't keep up with convenience store life anymore). I guess it's just not the route the author wanted to go down but I feel like it could have said more about the lack of representation and acceptance for people with these differences, rather than focussing on societal expectations – it seems the author wanted to straddle the line between a story about capitalism and shallow societal norms, and one about the life of an undiagnosed neurodivergent and aro-ace adult who has never met anyone like herself (and as an aside, Keiko definitely wants this, as shown by her disappointment in how the store manager suddenly became "a human male" after he started recognising her as a "normal" person). As someone for whom these latter issues are very important already, I don't know how much these would have come across to a reader who is not familiar with them. I worry that people might read it and just think that Keiko is weird and that's that – at least Eleanor Oliphant had a "rational" reason for her difference whereas Keiko just concludes that she isn't human, which isn't great representation for neurodivergent and aro-ace people. So maybe it's best that she wasn't given those labels! Neurodivergent people are too often wielded as quirky and convenient tools for pointing out how weird society is, for better or for worse. On the plus side, Keiko is very self aware and comfortable with her differences, and it's only the attitude of the people around her that make her doubt herself. Overall, I enjoyed the book and it gave me lots to think about (as demonstrated by this rambling review) but it also left me feeling a bit disappointed/uncomfortable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Acephobia/Arophobia, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Ableism, Eating disorder, Misogyny, and Sexism
Minor: Chronic illness, Infidelity, and Stalking
The main character is persistently treated as "wrong" and in need of a cure because she displays autistic traits and is aro/ace.greatexpectations77's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I really liked this, and I felt like I could picture the character really well. I felt like it really examined neurodiversity and capitalism and the importance that we place on coupling and so much else in our society. And wow did I hate Shiraha. I'm excited to read more from this author.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexism, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Chronic illness and Stalking
anastasialuoivsbooks's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
I didn't NOT like this. I just found it a bit lukewarm. It made me reflect though. The sexism and the idea that the only choices in the future of people are to work and gain 'as much as a man does,' or get married made me realise just how engraved certain ideas are in our lipunan.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, and Cultural appropriation