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K.J. Charles's Reviews > There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura
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bookshelves: japan, contemporary

Hard-to-classify book about a nameless young Japanese woman suffering from burnout. She quits her job and takes on a series of temp jobs, all of them marginally (or more) unsettling, in her effort to find a job that will be completely undemanding and require no emotional engagement or personal investment.

It's not a fantasy despite some slight fantasy elements, and it's not a mystery despite some mystery threads, and it's funny but not a comedy. Mostly I think it's a meditation on connections with other people: how we make them, how easily the modern world breaks them, how much they take out of us, and how in the end they're all the point there is. But it's much more readable and enjoyable than that suggests, so there we are.

Excellent translation, written with a view to fluency and readability in English, and has left me with a painful need for Japanese rice crackers.
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Reading Progress

January 29, 2023 – Shelved
January 29, 2023 – Shelved as: japan
January 29, 2023 – Shelved as: contemporary
Started Reading
January 30, 2023 – Finished Reading

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