This is the second book by this author I've read, still not Life Ceremony, the one that was recommended! There is a lot to love, but it's also off beat -- at times, way, way off beat.

I like the detached way some of her characters look at the world and what's expected of us. Like a Nathan Pyle alien cartoon. Some of the more familiar things are how people expect you to get married and have kids, get a job, but the right kind of job, and society throwing out those who don't follow the rules. I don't know to what degree this is a device for examining societal norms or is showing an ND point of view. Maybe it doesn't matter. It's all an examination of the eternal question, "what's normal anyway?"

The character seems puzzled by the weight we assign to things like how she should care about her sisters baby more than some other random baby. I feel like you could launch into some thoughts on how we build family or community. Or you could zoom out and think why we should prefer one nation over another, for example how USians prefer their war criminal country over Russia or something, even feel morally superior, even though it's unwarranted. 

Sometimes she goes way off the rails into maybe the psychopathic realm. It's not exactly just sterile logic alone in thinking the way to end an argument is beating someone over the head with a shovel. But nothing nearly as bad as her book Earthlings, which thinking back, i may have rated too low. I think it makes me uncomfortable in a good way. 

If I took more philosophy in school perhaps I could make some argument about what point was being made (examining taboos, solving the problem only considering yourself vs others wellbeing - or something similar to the Omelas problem), but I think there's a lot of  fun in this store seeming human and teaching Keiko the ropes and value in thinking about those things we as a society automatically praise or assume is normal ("productive member of society") vs what we reject.