And there's no such thing as an easy way for me to say this, but I just couldn't get on with this book about a watcher/observer, and gave up after a few chapters.

I can't put my finger on it, perhaps it was the drawn out description of the watcher's routine or just not my cup of tea.

Quirky and sweet, this follows a young woman’s search for an easy job - preferably one where she barely has to think, after having suffered burnout in her previous role. She moves through a series of seemingly simple jobs, but each one comes with its own complications. She meets a whole cast of delightful characters, and there’s a thread of magical realism throughout that works beautifully.

This is a quirky book and I appreciated the overall sentiment even if I didn't agree with it. However I found the writing clumsy in parts, which meant I kept stopping and struggled to read it quickly. Once I had dedicated time to read it I enjoyed it a lot more.

A fresh, relatable and often darkly comic book about a young woman working a series of unusual short-term jobs. It was a pleasure to read, each section/job flows into the next and the minor characters are still interesting in their own ways. Really enjoyed this book!

Usually when I finish a book I know exactly how I feel about it, yet this one has left me feeling decidedly uncertain! There were aspects I really enjoyed (the various different jobs - I especially liked the first job), and some of the funny and bizarre moments through the story.

But then there were things I really didn't like, in that it felt too long, sometimes the language was very jarring (in that it a sudden turn of phrase would appear and felt quite out of place with what was happening in the story), and the final reveal of the protagonist's abandoned job, and her summation about work felt sudden and disappointing.

I somehow spent the first part of the book thinking the protagonist was male - there's no name given, and that was how the character initially felt to me, so it was a bit of a surprise when I realised it was a woman. I really liked the strange mystery of the bus adverts job - what on earth was going on with that odd lady and all the magical appearing businesses?! And as I said, it had its moments throughout. I'm glad I read it, but I'm still not entirely sure that I would recommend it, as it's such a very odd book, and I can see a lot of readers would find it a frustrating read.

A 36-year-old woman suffering burn-out, seeks undemanding employment from a temping agency.

There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job highlights the myriad connections we make without realising.

As we follow the narrator through five distinctive temporary assignments, we discover her idiosyncrasies and reflections all told in a breezy voice that only sometimes hits the quirky tone to which the novel appears to aspire.

I feel it is a huge risk when publishers liken a debut book/author to one better-known in the backcover blurb. If the debut doesn’t meet readers’ expectations, it is likely to result in a poor rating and review. I suspect this might be the case here.

Has a certain charm.

My thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for the ARC.

DNF

Due to the fact that I couldn't manage to finish this book I haven't made up a clear opinion.
It just wasn't my cup of tea.

The book I didn’t know I’d been waiting for! Absolutely stunning novel, bursting with wit and also feeling. I absolutely adored There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job and will be recommending it heartily.

A quirky, different and fascinating novel which allows the reader to reflect on the choices we make and whether they are always as straightforward as we might think. I really enjoyed this book, and particularly loved all the detail about food.

There's No Such Thing As An Easy Job is a quirky, bittersweet book. It's an account of one year and five jobs, told with the kind of low-key deadpan humour that just about offsets the everyday anxieties of working life.

As someone who has changed careers and worked temp jobs, I found the story very relatable, and there were many scenarios and workplace relationships I recognised. The prose is slow-paced and bare-faced, but like many contemporary Japanese novels, there is also a hint of magical realism to keep things interesting. While the over-arching plot leaves a lot to be desired, I did enjoy the five sections as extended vignettes with a few returning characters.

There's No Such Thing... won't be everyone's cup of maté tea, but in many ways its lack of direction perfectly captures the ambivalence and futility of millennial working life.

This is such an overall fascinating book. It completely knocked everything i know about contemporary literature Out of the park and flipped everything i know about a story. It make me think deeply about myself and of the world, which all great books shall do.

Thank you to NetGalley, for the opportunity to read this book, however I’m unable to rate it, as I didn’t finish it.
This seemed to be something I’d love but I couldn’t get into the story.

This beguiling book has started making its way into my dreams: it's surreal and written with a deadpan humour akin to Sayaka Murata's brilliant CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN. In this novel, the unnamed narrator drifts from one job to another in search of something mindless, that she won't become completely invested in. Unfortunately, at each place of work has it's own bizarre quirks: at one job she makes adverts for shops that magical appear out of thin air, at another 'seemingly' easy job she finds herself infiltrating a sinister social club. THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS AN EASY JOB beautifully satirises the late capitalism obsession with workaholism and it's absurdities. It feels at once an inscrutable and oddly dream-like book, and at the same time uncannily recognisable. A propulsive, slyly funny read.

Comparing this novel to the work of Ottessa Moshfegh or Sayaka Murata seems somewhat misleading, if a bit lazy. There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job has elements that may bring to mind certain aspects of Convenience Store Woman but it has almost nothing in common with My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Still, I could have enjoyed Kikuko Tsumura's novel if it had something interesting to say or if it was written in a particularly inventive or catchy way. Sadly, I found There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job to be an exceedingly boring story that is written in an exceedingly boring way. Some of the issues I had may be due the translation (more on that later) but for the most part Tsumura's prose is kind of dull. Her protagonist, the classic unnamed narrator, lacks the deadpan tone of Murata's mc, nor does she have the same upbeat voice as the lead in Temporary (a novel that explores modern workplace in an absurdist fashion).
Tsumura's book is divided in five sections, each one focusing on a different job: in the first one our mc works a surveillance job (this happened to be the only section I enjoyed), in the second one she records ads for a bus company (advertising the shops that are on the route of that bus), in the third one she has to come up with 'fun/useful facts' for a packet of crackers, in the third one she puts posters up, and in the final job she works at a park maintenance office. We never gain any real insight into her private life (I'm fairly sure she lives alone and her parents are still alive) and we never learn anything about her past (other than she left her job because of burnout syndrome).
The jobs she are peculiar and yet they never held my interest. I liked Temporary much more because the jobs the mc does there are really weird. Yet, I think I could have tolerated reading about a relatively ordinary workplace if the dialogues or mc's inner monologue had been amusing, as they are in Murata's novel (which managed to make tedious tasks entertaining).
Even if I where to judge Tsumura's novel without drawing comparison to other novels, I still can't think of anything positive to say about it. The narration lacked zest, oomph. She recounts her routine in a very prosaic way, and she offers no real insights into why 'modern' work culture makes her feel so uninspired.
Usually when I read a translated book I don't really notice that the prose was not originally written in the language I'm reading but here the writing had this stilted quality that made me kind of aware that I was indeed reading a translation. Certain word choices struck me as awkward. There are many instances in which the narrator's colloquial style is interrupted by high-register and or antiquated words (such as nigh!). Maybe this was simply reflecting the original Japanese but I can't say for sure as I'm afraid my knowledge of Japanese is abysmal. And yes, I understand that translation is not an easy chore (in the past I tried my hand at translating) but that doesn't change that the prose There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job offers some eyebrow-raising phrases/passages.

Usually I read books of this length in two or three days but it took me five days to finish this novel (and I nearly fell asleep while reading it...which is new for me).

thanks to the narrator's voice in 'there's no such thing as an easy job', this book is incredibly funny, in a dry, unintentional way. while i haven't read as many translated works as i would like, i love how much kikuko tsumura leans in to our main character's deadpan attitude towards life and work, after being in those environments for so many years.

this book goes from being about a woman who has completely lost all interest in a complicated working life, wishing for something simple and easy to tide her over just so she has some money after leaving her previous job due to burnout. there's a frankness to the way kikuko tsumura explores the working world and just burnout in and of itself, how it feels to be sick of the working world and how dishonest it is in how it advertises your role. it's comically dark without ever feeling cynical: it's honest, and true to so many people's experiences in the world.

i did find, however, that this book suffers from being entirely too long. i understand the repetition, the monotony, is what makes the main themes of the narrative clear, but the initial 250 pages are a lot to get through. once the narrator's attitude changes become clearer, and the jobs somehow get even stranger, i found myself unable to put this book down. i definitely think it was a purposeful stylistic choice, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it was incredibly slow going at first.

For fans of Convenience Store Woman, this is a lovely slice-of-life story that asks big questions underneath. While on the surface, it seems to be about a woman who can't hold down a job, it's really about connection, caring, and the threads that tie us to society. Charming, funny and surprisingly deep, I really enjoyed this. I also thought that the translation was fantastic, treading a light path between preserving the elements of Japanese culture that might be surprising to a UK reader while making the narration accessible, voice-driven and funny.

I've been reading a lot of contemporary Japanese fiction and was looking forward to reading this story of a young woman searching out 'easy jobs' after burnout as a social worker. For me it was a mixed experience. There were parts of the novel that were very amusing, and parts that were very sad, I did like the magical realism parts.

However overall I found it too long, it could have benefited from more editing and I don't think it's of the calibre of Convenience Store Woman with which it's compared.

As always with books that are deemed “amusing,” I often find myself thinking just how tragic it is. I enjoyed reading it for the most part, but the book has some lengths for me. I can sort of see the parts that some would find amusing, but I don’t know why but this book just overall made me profoundly sad for the people in it and the world in general. Probably me.

This was such a lovely book.
The protagonist is a 36-year old woman, who keeps hopping from job to job after a burn out.
I loved the magical realism elements of the book, and it being in a non de-script place in Japan.
I recognize a lot of her searching for an ideal balance of challenge, interaction and peace of mind.

I read the translation in English, which I think captured the book well, but had a bunch of grammar and spelling mistakes, which was unfortunate.

The book was given to me by NetGalley.

I really wanted to love this one. It had many elements I would usually like: a young, female protagonist, set in Japan, focused discussion on working environments. Heck, it’s even being compared to two of my favourite novels (Convenience Store Woman and My Year of Rest and Relaxation).

In my opinion the comparison only works against it, setting it up to fail.

TNSTAAEJ has none of the clever social commentary that is so special about those other two novels. Were it shorter, maybe half the size, it could have been an enjoyable and interesting (maybe even relatable as I’ve experienced burnout myself) read but it was so long and monotonous it just became a chore to read.

I had high hopes and I’m so disappointed.