"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘯 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘺."

'Convenience Store Woman' is a first-person narrative of a 36 yo convenience store worker, Keiko, whose sole reason for existence is to serve the titular convenience store she works at. In all her 18 years of service at the convenience store, Keiko has religiously abided by the store rules, reciting her "welcomes" and "thanks for your customs" with a flourish: acting as she did as an almost self-erasing entity called 'an obedient & hardworking employee' in a capitalist system.

Born not in a dysfunctional family but an affectionate & loving environment, her teachers, parents & even her therapist fail to plumb the depths of the reason or cause why Keiko can't act 'normal' (what does normal even mean & who defines it?) Branded a strange child for always getting in trouble, she grows up completely withdrawing from social circles,  a recluse among her peers with no husband, children or even a full-time 'respectable' job (all the traditional markers of 'success'), she is often at the receiving end of being violated by people's prying noses meddling in her life. 

'Convenience Store Woman' in its 160 odd pages doesn't pull any punches delving ruthlessly into sensitive, taboo subjects like misogyny, gender roles within a patriarchal system, identity politics, sexuality and how the private individual is a political entity in a late-capitalist, patriarchal society. Anyone who fails to 'perform' their designated roles in the hetero-normative, capitalist framework (the centre, the 'normal') is branded an 'outsider' (the margin, the 'abnormal'), an outcast shunned to the periphery of the society: a fate worse than death. With this 'death', Keiko is reborn as the convenience store woman twice: completely shedding her human identity, being reborn as that primal, animal instinct that breaths in tandem with the Convenience Store, the cells coursing through her body finally becoming one with it.