Review Brilliant, witty, and sweet...[Keiko's] story of conforming for convenience (literally) is one that women all over the world know all too well.-- "Vogue"[In this] small, elegant, and deadpan novel from Japan, a woman senses that society finds her strange, so she culls herself from the herd before anyone else can do it...[An] offbeat exploration of what we must each leave behind to participate in the world.-- "New York Times Book Review"[Keiko] is an anti-Bartleby, abandoning any shred of identity outside of her work...The book itself is tranquil-dreamy, even-rooting for its employee-store romance from the bottom of its synthetic heart.-- "New Yorker"A dazzling English-language debut in a crisp translation by Takemori, rich in scathingly entertaining observations on identity, perspective, and the suffocating hypocrisy of 'normal' society.-- "Booklist (starred review)"A haunting, dark, and often hilarious take on society's expectations of the single woman. As an extra bonus, it totally transformed my experience of going to convenience stores in Tokyo.-- "Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot"A hilarious novel...Convenience Store Woman mocks the culture of work, the employee's devotion to their patron saint, and pokes fun at the conservative mindset. For what is a young woman worth if she has neither professional ambition nor a desire to get married?-- "Marie-France (France)"A hilariously deadpan, absurdist send-up of rigorous social norms in aging, postwar Japan...Keiko's fidelity to her role as a cog in the machine is put to the test and the result is as quietly unsettling as any one of Kafka's short stories.-- "BuzzFeed"A love story pulled out of the deep-freeze shelves of the heart...True love is the simple and beautiful moral of this unusual yet uplifting story.-- "Die Zeit (Germany)"A spare, quietly brilliant novel...Though she feels like the odd one out, it's her frank appraisal of the systems of the world that reveals the absurdity of everyone else.-- "BuzzFeed"A weird and wonderful and deeply satisfying book.-- "Jami Attenberg, New York Times bestselling author"Getting to hear the Irasshaimase! greetings sprinkled throughout...with their proper Japanese inflection is one key to this audiobook's excellence. But Nancy Wu's bright, emotionally detached reading of protagonist Miss Furukura is what transforms the book into a harrowing look inside a potential sociopath's mind.-- "Paste magazine (audio review)"I was really amazed by Convenience Store Woman and the particular reality it exquisitely portrays.-- "Ryu Murakami, author of Almost Transparent Blue"Magical...Sayaka Murata has written the 7-11 Madame Bovary....This is a love story. Only the love affair here is between a woman and the convenience store in which she works.-- "Literary Hub"Murata herself spent years as a convenience store employee. And one pleasure of this book is her detailed portrait of how such a place actually works. Yet the book's true brilliance lies in Murata's way of subverting our expectations.-- "NPR"Murata skillfully navigates the line between the book's wry and weighty concerns and ensures readers will never conceive of the 'pristine aquarium' of a convenience store in quite the same way. A unique and unexpectedly revealing English language debut.-- "Kirkus Reviews"Murata's brilliant Convenience Store Woman...has been seen as a Gothic romance between a 'misfit and a store' and as...an artful grotesque of modern personal branding.-- "Millions"Narrator Nancy Wu gives Keiko a doll-like voice, a funny mix of mechanical and childishness that aptly captures the character's otherness.-- "Chicago Tribune (audio review)"Quirky Keiko Furukura comes to awkward life in Nancy Wu's hilarious narration...an energetic delivery that keeps listeners engaged from the first chapter...Wu has us laughing out loud, especially at Keiko's unexpected forays into love. This is a rollicking story...paired with a narrator who can maximize the characters' discomfort