As someone who has worked in retail on and off over the last few years, I guessed, with a certain degree of confidence, some of the many frustrations faced by Anna whilst working behind a till. That said, I found the book an eyeopening reminder of how retail workers are casually treated with utter disdain by both their employers and members of the public.
Like Gallic's fiction titles, Checkout is written in a very readable and light style which gently drives home the book's simple message; supermarket workers are people too. Now, writing that sentence seems daft as it should be taken as given that, well in the words of Depeche Mode 'people are people', but after reading this book you realise that this isn't the case.
In some respects Checkout reminded me of the central message of Catlin Moran's amazing book How to be a Woman which is the earth-shattering plea to treat people nicely (if you haven't read it yet you should read it now!) At the risk of sounding like a revolutionary Marxist, just imagine how much nicer society could be if we all just respected each other more. If the supermarkets had more respect for their workers then maybe they would be given longer than eighteen minutes break in a six hour shift. Imagine what it would be like if people repressed some of their selfish urges and stopped pushing in front of pensioners in till queues. I better stop now before I start sounding like John Lennon.
So I do recommend Checkout, not so much for its literary qualities, but for its overriding message of simple civility. On that thought I'll leave you with the immortal words of Jerry Springer: 'Take care of yourselves, and each other'.
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