マウス

by Sayaka Murata

私は内気な女子です――無言でそう訴えながら新しい教室へ入っていく。早く同じような風貌の「大人しい」友だちを見つけなくては。小学五年の律（りつ）は目立たないことで居場所を守ってきた。しかしクラス替えで一緒になったのは友人もいず協調性もない「浮いた」存在の塚本瀬里奈。彼女が臆病な律を変えていく。（講談社文庫）

Genres: Japanese Literature

189 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 15, 2011

About the author

Sayaka Murata (in Japanese, 村田 沙耶香) is one of the most exciting up-and-coming writers in Japan today.
She herself still works part time in a convenience store, which gave her the inspiration to write Convenience Store Woman (Konbini Ningen). She debuted in 2003 with Junyu (Breastfeeding), which won the Gunzo Prize for new writers. In 2009 she won the Noma Prize for New Writers with Gin iro no uta (Silver Song), and in 2013 the Mishima Yukio Prize for Shiro-oro no machi no, sono hone no taion no (Of Bones, of Body Heat, of Whitening City). Convenience Store Woman won the 2016 Akutagawa Award. Murata has two short stories published in English (both translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori): "Lover on the Breeze" (Ruptured Fiction(s) of the Earthquake, Waseda Bungaku, 2011) and "A Clean Marriage" (Granta 127: Japan, 2014).

Reviews

[Yuko Shimizu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of Murata’s novels tends to start kind of normal and then takes a turn into bone-chilling ending. This goes sort of the other way around. It starts typical Murata oddness which turns surprisingly sweet. Also, usually her protagonists are outsiders, but the main character here is a bit shy but very ordinary average kid, and the outsider kid is her classmate, and she’s seen through her eyes.
It is interesting to see her trying out things that are different to her, to break her norms.
When this book gets translated into English, I wonder if it get marketed as a YA?

[Earwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

first real novel I finished in japanese....I feel ill equipped to review it because what-if-i-got-something-wrong

It's a story about fitting in, or not. It doesn't go too crazy like some of Murata's translated works. It's more lowkey and kind of almost a cute story. A girl who is very conscious of others views of her and tries to fit in best she can befriends another girl who is an outsider and has no care to fit in. Not in a rebellious way, it just doesn't occur to her she should care. The lead reminded me of Convenience Store Woman's mc at times. Though they are still different in other aspects.

I enjoyed it but maybe I was a bit too low level for it. I didn’t have trouble following it , but from what I know of her books in english, there is more to them than what goes on on the surface. I don’t think I quite understood マウス on the level I would have liked to.

[Anne Awaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an honest rendering of a person who deems herself to be reticent and non-risk-taking in elementary school, and attempting to fit in with the crowd as much as possible. Later as a college student, her job as a server helps her find her louder, more confident voice. She also reconnects with an old friend, who was never afraid to go against the grain, but was inspired by the book The Nutcracker. “Mouse” seems quite harsh on herself and her friend, but in the end may find what it really means to embrace oneself and their own individuality, whether it’s one’s own lanky body, the style of clothes one wears, or an obsession with a children’s fairytale.