Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I simply loved this book! It was quite sad, thought-provoking and fun at the same time. I finished reading it a few days ago and I can't stop thinking about it.

Keiko is strange. She knows about it and she is trying very hard to be "normal"; that's why she is copying the behaviour of the people around her - she talks like one woman and dresses like the other one, keeps pretending everything is fine with her. But she is already 36 and she realises, that not having a man in her life makes her original, noticeable. So - she finds a man, as strange as she is, to live at her place and lets her family and friends believe, that they are actually a couple.

What I found interesting was that Keiko was a very happy, balanced person at the beginning of the book. Her unconventional life was giving her lots of joy - yet, none of her friends seemed to notice or appreciate it. They forced her to become someone else, someone unhappy, and they were very satisfied about it, because now Keiko seemed more similar to them. And I don't know, are we really all like that? Is being normal really so important for us that we are ready to destroy somebody's life? I truly hope I'm not.

I'm very glad about the ending of the book - I'm not going to write about it, but I think it was perfect. I wouldn't like any other kind of ending to this book. 

It was a great book and I'm very happy I read it.

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