saguaros 's review for:

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum

3.0

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in the author’s notes she mentions that she was struggling writing essays when the thought of writing a novel occurred to her and that is how she wrote this book. And I think that made sense, because even though this book is fictional, a lot of the (very) short chapters felt like mini essays: on life, on work, on books and reading and bookstores and writing, on passions and dreams, etc. In a way it was nice, and I especially enjoyed the more pointed critique at Korean culture—especially work culture—that were both illuminating, but also still relatable. It oftentimes felt a little TOO much like a series of essays, and it wasn’t always easy to keep all the characters straight and I thought it was slightly too long and got a little repetitive. These healing fiction books all seem to be a little too on the nose for me, but I still persevere in reading them.