Review: The Convenience Store by the Sea
This turns out to be the kind of quirky sitcom someone of my age might have run into in a neglected time spot on an off channel. It’s the kind of show you wouldn’t quite believe was aired until you ran into someone else who had gotten into it and you wound up spending a couple hours talking about it at a party. It’s working inside the form but with the kind of stylish takes that seats it in its own world. It’s not where you live, but is fun to spend time in. Sonoko Machida does a great job creating that feeling in a novel.
The whole thing is set in a seaside Japanese town, specifically in a convenience store. But, it’s a quirky TV sitcom convenience store. There are larger than life employees, a weird ecosystem of neighbors, some customer or employee with a problem- one to a chapter – and strange product placement moments for the fictional products of the fictional store seamfully inserted. It’s all quirky and fun and I quite enjoyed spending time there.
Recommended.