I just finished this book for the second time and I loved it as much as I remembered. As I have been getting more interested in ‘healing fiction’ as a genre, I wanted to read this book again so that I could write a review on it with it fresh in my mind. Not highly driven by a plot, this soft story follows main character Yeongju as she opens her bookshop and how more people from the neighbourhood become involved in some way. It is a story of people coming together, different life paths taken when life becomes tough and filled with philosophical musings about work-life balance, passions to follow and relationships. Open the door, sniff the comforting combination of books and coffee, and welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop.
Characters
As this book is less driven by a plot and more so by its characters, I thought I’d start there straight away. Yeongju is the owner of the bookshop and she is really at its heart. Her warm personality and outlook on life is what really shapes the bookshop and its visitors, and this is very obvious to readers as she often muses on her thoughts to us. At the start of the book, we only get information about the characters as they are in that moment, and the further the book takes us the more we get to know them all. For Yeonju, this is almost at the end of the novel. Though I was of course curious about her background, I didn’t mind not knowing, because we got to know her exactly as she was at that moment. Her past sheds a different light on her situation, and it made me think about the influence of your past in who you are as a person. Does it truly matter what you did before? Or should we let go of everything that surrounds us and focus on here and now to determine who we are? I found this a very interesting point that the novel brought up, albeit not directly.
The second important character that is introduced is Minjun, who becomes the bookshop’s barista. I really liked to read his growth in both his personal life and his professional life. He struggles with finding work, something that is relevant for many people currently, so he applies to become the barista. Thinking he will work there for 6 months at the most in order to find a regular full time job fitting his diploma, he gets swept away by the charm of both the bookshop and its owner. All of these characters start to form a sort of family towards the end of the book, and Minjun decides he enjoys his work there and his life. Despite protest from his parents, he decides to keep working there because he is happy and content. This was so refreshing to see, as many people face a lot of outside pressure in different facets of life, and Minjun does not succumb to these.
He is not the only character who carves out a path of his own. The other characters include, Mincheol, a young boy who is not interest in school, or well anything actually. Then there is Jungsuh, Seungwoo, Jimi, Sangsu and Sungchul. They are all struggling in their own way, but as they come together they find comfort in each other and slowly everyone finds their own path.
Opening this book at the start and end of the day always felt like a wave of comfort coming from the characters, and it felt as if I was one of the clients, browsing through the books and listening to the characters talking and going about their day. It was the second time I read it, and I enjoyed it just as much as the first time. If you are like me and you sometimes crave a bit of comfort and reassurance in a book, this one is perfect to pick up.
Toni's Book Corner 