Electrifying honesty. Are you strong enough to see your reflection? – Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata – Book Review

Convenience Store Woman
Author – Sayaka Murata
Genre – Satire/ Dark / Japanese Literature
Rating – 4.5/5

Electrifying honesty. Are you strong enough to see your reflection? It’s a brilliant plot that is deeply penetrating to expose our reality and constantly mirror the human world. A tight slap to proudy civilization.

Keiko didn’t understand why her mother felt shocked and went pale when she took the dead bird in her hand and went to her mother to say let’s eat it. Why does her mother want to bury it? Isn’t her father’s favorite dish Yakitori? That’s actually a grilled bird. A bird that is dead and covered with some spicy ingredients and grilled in the oven, is also the same dead bird then why her mother wants to bury it?
She doesn’t understand dozens of things, her logical mind searches for links to grasp the concept of the human world but she fails to understand society’s logical explanation and people find her behaviour needed to be cured. She wouldn’t figure out our hypocrite world’s formula but she unlocked her way to live in this society. She started copying mechanisms of the actions, she copied others talking style, walking style, working style just like absorbing their personality. This is her way to survive in this world.

A shockingly bold, dark yet hilarious presentation of this human world through the lens of a person who is un–politically bold, searching for logic in the work of behaviour exploring the truth which is beautifully covered with fake cultural elements.

As if Keiko wasn’t enough, author created another character Shiraha. When Shiraha exposes Keiko, her reality, her life comes to the edge where she desperately needs the power to reshape her life. Shiraha smoothly and effortlessly exposes the true face of humanity, he was astonishing; he easily proved that we humans haven’t adapted to any changes since prehistoric days, and we are living in the same format as we lived in the Stone Age.

With immense profundity, author created a sharp pin that stabbed the Buble of our cultural and sophisticated mind that we carefully nurtured for years.

We love to fantasize about ourselves as different as civilized which makes us feel happy.

But whatever, at some point I was thinking is Shiraha really good, wasn’t he said all this to hide his lethargic nature, his laziness?
That wasn’t perfectly prominent what was Shiraha’s actual character but what he said to Keiko was marvelously brilliant. But the lack of clearance creates doubt which is inevitable. I wish the author would focus on Shiraha’s character and a little elaboration would be better for the book.

It is definitely a praiseworthy book and recommended to all. Must read, leave everything aside, and read this.