Four-star review of Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum
This Korean novel was as much a treatise on the philosophy of choosing a job that can make you happy as it was a fictional story. The writing style was sometimes awkward, but that could have been the translation. Yeong-Ju isn’t happy in her IT job or her marriage. After her divorce, she opens her childhood dream of a bookshop in a quiet neighborhood. The shop evolves over time into more than a bookstore but also a meeting place with a coffee counter and book clubs. The friendships that develop among the characters was one of the more interesting parts of the book.
