If you loved Before The Coffee Gets Cold you will love this.

The Convenience Store by the Sea is a series of interconnected short stories about customers or staff members of a beautiful local shop with a lot of heart and a little magic.

I wish I had read about the structure going into it, as I wanted to follow every character to the very end but you really only get a snippet of how the store changed their life at the turning point. There is a touch of magic infused throughout but it is a background feature rather than the central plot.

I found the unfolding community the real delight of this book. Seeing the tiny gifts and favours peppered throughout and the warming festive plots towards the end made this fun to read.

The pace is incredibly laid back, probably slightly more so than is my preference, but I enjoyed myself all the same.

This is a heartwarming book where nothing dramatic or threatening happens but enjoy the small moments and joys in the characters’ lives. It is definitely a cosy read which is my favourite subgenre in Japanese fictions.

Unfortunately, I felt a bit lost at times due to too many characters. I think it would have been easier to connect with the stories if the staff at the store remained as the main characters throughout the book. Instead, the focus kept shifting to different characters, so I couldn’t feel strong attachment to any of them except Mr Shiba who seems completely an unrealistic character but stands out in the book..

Still, there are many uplifting and charming moments in the book that made it worth a read for me!

This is a sweet little read with multiple stories based on the same convenience store. Sometimes characters overlap and I enjoyed my time with them.

I'm really sad to say that I did not like this book as much as I wanted to. :(
By looking at the stunning cover and reading the synopsis I had high expectations that I could love this book. I didn't.
I guess the main reasons are: way too many characters to keep track (for my taste) and some characters are too eccentric. Honestly, I didn't relate or connect to any characters. I was, indeed, a little more curious about Mr Shiba, but other than that, no one else stood out to me.
I liked it when the characters were talking food and shop organization, but that didn't happen very often.
It was a cozy read that unfortunately will not be very memorable to me.
Maybe I'm the one to blame for expecting this book to be something closer or more similar to Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata.
Yet, I do recommend this book to readers who usually enjoy cozy Japanese books.
Thank you, NetGalley and Orion, for providing me with a free eARC of this novel.

The cover art on this book is just beautiful: a gentle, slice-of-life scene with a gorgeous colour palette. I’d totally buy an art print of it!

Within these serial shorts, we have a fantastic food writing and the food theme across the most of stories really worked. To illustrate: for me, there’s nothing for vile than egg salad sandwiches, seriously the mere thought makes me feel sick; but, the way these were described in the second story were starting to win me over and make me hungry. That’s powerful writing!

The sense of place was excellent - I loved the vibe of the convenience store! The interconnectedness of the stories was enjoyable too, I particularly love the serial short format in stories like this.

My favourite section was Melancholy Strawberry Parfait with the schoolgirls who bond over their sweets and form a meaningful friendship. It was emotive but also quite sweet.
The least enjoyable was Advent Calendar Cookies of Love and Longing which didn’t have the food theme but loads of high school angst. It was also the only chapter that wasn’t significantly connected to the convenience store.

I didn’t like the weird sex-appeal thing surrounding the manager. It didn’t contribute anything to the story except awkwardness and I don’t understand what the point of it was. The convenience store stood on its own merits without that weirdness.

Bruno Navasky is a gifted translator. This was one of the more enjoyable translations I’ve read in 2024. He brought the story and world to life for English speakers in a way that felt authentic and unobtrusive with only two words (rubbish, car park) that didn’t feel 100% accurate. I’ll keep my eyes open for future works of his!

I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted through NetGalley. Thank you so much, Orion! ✨