Convenience Store Woman is one of those books, like The Maid or Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, with a protagonist who isn't diagnosed with autism but is obviously autistic to readers who know anything about autism, and who struggles to navigate neurotypical society.

I don't think that I enjoy these books in the ways that neurotypical readers do. I often see reviews that describe the protagonists as quirky, refreshing, and unique if the reader liked them, and describe them as weird or mentally deficient if the reader didn't. There's a sense of the autistic protagonist being uniquely situated to reveal some truth about society that neurotypical people just don't notice or have too much decorum to say out loud. There's an implication that these autistic characters are inspirational, which is no disabled person's favorite thing to be seen as, I can assure you.

Maybe that's why these books are being written, but it's not why I read them. As an autistic woman, I read them because I want to see characters that I can relate to, and I want to see how we're represented. It's kind of like eavesdropping on something that might not be meant for me to hear, but I want to know if lies and rumors are being spread about people like me. And my hope is always that the answer is no, and I get a good story out of the experience.

And that was pretty much the case with Convenience Store Woman. I could relate a lot to Furukura's sense of belonging and comfort in a role that organized her life and helped her to make sense of her place in the world. And I like that the novel didn't become some big journey of discovery for her. There's a sense here that Murata understands that disability is socially constructed, and that Furukura's failure to live up to her society's expectations in regard to her career and her relationships are not really Furukura's problem. To me, this book seems less about conformity, as a lot of people say, and more about the need to find one's place.

I'm glad that I finally got around to reading this, and I liked it enough that I'm going to give Murata's Earthlings a try, too.