Yesterday, I finished Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by South Korean writer Hwang Boreum. The book inspired me to finally start writing this blog. I’ve had the domain for two years and never felt ready—I guess I finally am.
I will try to make this post as much about the book and as little about me starting with the blog as possible. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the book, but I am also very excited to finally have this post editor open and active.
The book contains everything a book lover can like. A lovely, independent bookshop. Locally brewed coffee. A lady who does crocheting and knitting in the bookshop. Book club. Indie movies. What finally moved me is that some of the characters write blogs or columns (or both), and communicate and learn about each other with them. I wanted that for me, too!
I liked how well described is that every character is on a life path. Obviously, every character in every book is, but authors often don’t show it, or even forget it, and have characters that are only there for the sake of the story. Here, everyone had a life and a story, and you could at least partially relate to everyone. I also liked that they weren’t too young, maybe even close to my age (if I calculated correctly, they were in their late twenties or even early thirties, with a couple of younger characters. I am currently 27 years old). Lots of them made mistakes in early adulthood, those years that are often portrayed in the media as the most important years in somebody’s life where every important decision is made and if you do wrong, you’re doomed for the rest of your life. I like how it’s not the case in this book, and lots of them changed the way their life path is going. I understand that it’s a tough and problematic topic in South Korea, where the book is located, and I am glad that this book tackles those topics that are heavy there, like divorce, not doing the job that you went to university for, being on not speaking terms with your parents and so on. If I understand well, this makes it not as popular in South Korea as it is in the rest of the world and I hope that will change.
The book author, Hwang Boreum (Korean: 황보름) is from South Korea. She studied computer science and worked as a software engineer, just like me! I was so happy to see that when I opened the book and I knew that I was here for a threat. I also LOVED the book design, and the lady walking a dog on every chapter ending! The lady with the dog moved from the left side to the right as you read. The joys of reading!
I’ve heard from this book in the book club I am a member of in Vienna. Fun story, this book actually started the book club, because our founder liked it so much that it inspired her to start a book club. Unfortunately, because of my bad time management, a topic that will be heavily discussed in this blog, I didn’t read the book in time to talk about it in the book club, but now, half a year later. I don’t mind it, it found me at the most suitable time and it inspired me to start with something at the beginning of this year, 2025. So, so far this book started two things in my life. I recommend it to you, too. Maybe it will inspire you, too. If not, at least it will provide you with an interesting cozy story, amazing scenes, and a lot of warmth. What else do you need?