兩個女人住一起

by 金荷娜, 김하나, Kim Hana

不結婚也不單身，非愛情卻超友誼
多元成家，其實還有這一種可能

　　▲《朝鮮日報》、《韓民族日報》、《京鄉新聞》推薦好書
　　▲Yes24網路書店2019年度之書

　　單身、未婚、獨居，難道就等於孤老終身？
　　我們拒絕套用公式人生！
　　1+1大於2──兩人四貓，加上一群鄰居摯友
　　組成史上最大家族，成為彼此最完美的人生伴侶！

　　獨居資歷超過20年的好友金荷娜、黃善宇，漸漸厭倦一個人住的孤單與不安全感。她們偶然看上一間房子，便決定一起買下它，展開同居生活。

　　住在一起後，兩個好友才真正看見彼此的巨大差異──囤積症vs極簡主義；料理白痴vs烹飪小天才，她們在爭吵磨合與長短互補間，藉由與對方的差異，漸漸更懂得了自己。

　　一起吃飯、一起運動、一起喝酒、一起當貓奴，不用奉養對方的父母，不用成為誰家的媳婦，生病互相照顧、困難互相幫助……兩個女人住一起，找到了單身的輕盈感與有人相伴的溫暖，能夠同時並存的美妙。

　　「一個人製造的是記憶，和別人一起卻能成為回憶。
　　我們決定住在一起，創造雙倍快樂，共同走過人生各種曲折。」

　　臺灣單身人口已突破600萬的現今，傳統婚姻制度和家庭觀念，早已跟不上生活樣貌變化之快速。如同只在一家公司做到退休的工作模式已被打破，「多元成家」代表的不只是性別平權，更包括了突破以婚姻或血緣結合的傳統家庭形式。

　　金荷娜、黃善宇正是掙脫了傳統價值束縛，讓我們看見「家庭組成不只有一種方式」。隨著她們的同居生活，重新找出各自獨立、又能平等付出的幸福生活新藍圖。

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Feminism, Audiobook, Friendship, Asia, Biography Memoir

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 22, 2019

Reviews

[emma]

the ideal situation.

did i want the women to be in love? sure. i'm only human.

this was a nice look at south korean culture and society, and a nice portrait of a deeply unhinged friendship, and honestly more about being a cat owner than anything else.

there were points in this that were truly crazy to me — for example, if i lived with a person so messy that i had to clean up after her and force her to pay me for it, i would move out immediately — but that often added to the fun of the otherwise short, shallow chapters.

bottom line: pleasant.

(thanks to the publisher for the alc)

[Thomas]

A super solid four star read. I most appreciated how softly radical this memoir is. These two South Korean best friends defy expectations about women’s lives by choosing to live with one another instead of following the traditional route of marriage and moving in with one’s spouse. While most of the memoir focuses on their unique friendship, I liked the few chapters dedicated to specifically doing away with the stigma of being romantically single. Both women write about how they’re essentially unbothered by being single, not being married, etc. and that they’re content and happy doing their thing with themselves and with one another. As someone who also hasn’t gone down the heteronormative path of marrying someone and moving in with them, these writers’ perspectives felt refreshing and validating.

That being said, most of the memoir is dedicated to their friendship. How they met, what they like about one another, their cats, etc. I appreciate that they didn’t portray their friendship as not having any conflict or friction, rather they share about what they do to address disagreements. Their writing about one another isn’t overly idealistic or sentimental either. They seem like folks who both care deeply about one another and have healthy expectations and perspectives about themselves and their connection.

I can see why some people give this a lower rating because the vibe of this book is indeed chill. Quiet. Not much drama. If I wasn’t so invested in people elevating platonic relationships and disinvesting from amatonormativity I may have given this one three stars. However, I also see and resonate with the appeal of having a book about two wholesome friends doing their thing. Their friendship, at least from what they share with us here, isn’t fueled by conflict or drama and is instead stable and thriving, but in a subdued way. Overall, a meaningful read, especially for those interested in alternative paths in growing up and getting older.

[enzoreads]

hyper beau mémoire sur l’amitié, les attentes de la société et la colocation

[Lavelle]

a realistic and inspiring look at what life/companionship/etc can look like outside of typical marriage/romantic conventions. I want to be these women and I absolutely loved this book

[Madhukari]

I love books that inspire, entertain, and help us envision new ways of perceiving the world and living in it.

[Violet]

Published in South Korea in 2019, this book challenges the traditional family structure. It looks at life in modern Korea, focusing on the high cost of housing and the pressure to marry.

Neither Hana nor Sunwoo wanted a husband, partly because marriage there is ruled by patriarchal traditions and obligations to in-laws. In a series of short essays, they write about becoming friends and buying a home together in Seoul. They describe their love of drinking and going out for hangover soup, but they are also honest about the friction of living together, especially when a neat freak and a messy person share a space with four cats. I liked how Hana and Sunwoo found a solution to modern Korean life on their own terms.

In the final essays, they have paid off their mortgage and have a successful podcast called Two Women Talking Together.

[CatReader]

Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo are two South Korean female friends who, in their early 40s, chose for financial and companionship reasons to consolidate their households and begin cohabitating long-term in a large apartment they bought together, with the intent of this arrangement lasting indefinitely. I listened to the audiobook narration of the 2026 English translation of their co-written book Two Women Living Together, first published in South Korea in 2019.

The book consists of a series of essays written separately that discuss why they chose and designed this living arrangement, how they've navigated conflicts and challenging situations, and their future plans. The essays vary from humorous to poignant to mundane, similar to how other cohabitants would probably describe the experience of moving in together and attempting to merge lives.

I did find this concept and situation quite interesting, being mindful that there are sociocultural issues at play that I don't fully understand as an American. For instance, Kim and Hwang talk about the lack of legal recognition of their 'chosen family'-type arrangement in South Korea, where in many social scenarios they have supported each other in a similar fashion as one might support an immediate family member or significant other. Though Kim and Hwang don't identify as gay and don't characterize their relationship as anything other than platonic friendship in the book, from a practical and pragmatic standpoint a lot of those legal protections could be conferred via a civil union, except that as of 2026 same-sex civil unions are still not recognized in South Korea.

Further reading:
Bad Friend: How Women Revolutionized Modern Friendship by Tiffany Watt Smith - if I recall correctly, Hwang and Kim may have been discussed here as well
Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life by Bella DiPaolo

My statistics:
Book 27 for 2026
Book 2333 cumulatively

[Jody Masch]

When I picked up this book, I understood the premise & I was intrigued. A middle-aged woman wants to own property, but she’s single, & feels she can’t afford to own the kind of apartment she’d like by herself. So she befriends someone, convinces her that they should purchase an apartment together, & then they do. The remainder of the book is mostly about how they choose to decorate & divvy up responsibilities in the apartment, as well as little hurdles they go through along the way. How they mesh with each others’ families, though they’re only cohabitants, not romantic partners.

Somewhere along the way, this book loses its magic. There’s nothing really novel about the cohabitation. Maybe in the joint property ownership, but having roommates is nothing new in today’s world. The end seemed to get lost in highlighting their many side gigs in podcasting & writing other nonfiction. It seems that these 2 women really did strike it rich talking about their joint property ownership in South Korea. They’re also interested in changing legislation so that they can legally support one another though they are not married.

It got a bit dull, This book is quite short, yet about halfway through I was dying to just make it to the end already. I do wonder if this book might have gotten lost in translation.

[Allana]

3.5 rounded firmly up

"A person shouldn't pride themselves on the number of square feet in their house or the brand of car they drive, but on their friends. Not on how accomplished or how powerful their friends are. But how well they can cook, how well they can eat, how soundly they sleep, how well they sing, how honest they can be, how many drinks you've had together, and how many silly memories - those are the things you can truly be proud of."

Not quite the Korean Golden Girls I was looking for, but pretty close.
I loved reading about this friendship.

[jenny✨]

there's something so special about a book that makes you feel seen and affirmed ("we have been in your shoes and we understand") while also showing new ways to be ("here is one path forward; we lived it, and you can too"). this is a book that did both for me, and i see my future in it <3

[Kamila Kunda]

This is the book I badly needed to read, without even realising it. “Two Women Living Together” by Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo is the memoir about the beauty, joys, struggles, dreams and pain of two female friends in their late 40s, who over eight years ago decided to get a mortgage (which they paid off in two years) and buy an apartment together in Seoul, and who became W2C4: two women and four cats.

“Sunwoo’s boss said this about married life: living together with someone is communal living. The best partner isn’t someone whose lifestyle matches yours, but someone who is willing to put in the effort to create a lifestyle with you. With the latter, any conflict can be resolved.”

Hana and Sunwoo, in alternating chapters, talk about the life they built, even though it hasn’t been easy. Both women have different personalities, different habits, some different hobbies, fears and reactions to events. And yet, with a lot of effort and enormous respect they created a home of which they write: “What a warm and friendly place we live in.” And this extends to the apartment building, in which some of their friends also live, and the neighbourhood. There are neighbours and friends with whom they play table tennis, celebrate successes in neighbourhood cosy cafés, who they can rely on when it comes to looking after their cats when they travel.

I was moved to tears many times reading about these amazing and strong women overcoming big and small challenges and dealing with negative emotions, learning new things, discovering new activities and new qualities of their cohabitant. There is so much passion and joy of living a simple life on the pages of this book that I thought my heart would burst. I don’t think I had ever read about a friendship between women more beautiful than this one and a book that would be more life-affirming than “Two Women Living Together”.

“A happy life isn’t achieved by preparing for and avoiding pain, loss an agony. Without those, perhaps life wouldn’t be life at all”.

This is such a wise book that reached me to support me in the time of my life when I need it most. Thank you @kimtolkong and @bestrongnow for giving me inspiration and strength 🙏🏻

[Jen]

For some reason, I tend to enjoy listening to non-fiction audio books more than fiction. I also enjoy learning about how people in others cultures and countries live, so this autobiography of two Korean women who decided to not follow the traditional marriage and children route caught my interest.

From what I have read in manhwa and from this book, I have gotten the impression that those who live in Korea enjoy eating meat, drinking alcohol, reading and either having a cat or a dog. They seem to know how to have a good time, lol. (Warning, they had four cats in this beginning of this, but not at the end. Normal, every day life, nothing violent or drastic, but sad.)

Also, while both women in this friendship and living arrangement have very differing personalities, they seem to get along quite well. The one who put up with the almost hoarder is a SAINT in my book. I wouldn't be able to live like that, so major props to her.

I also stand by what they stated about how hard it is to live alone and having to do ALL of the chores by ones' self. Having a partner in crime to help with the cooking, cleaning, etc., is HUGE. Yes, living alone is nice, if I do the dishes, five minutes later there isn't a sink (or countertop) full of more to be done unless I am the one who used them. However, there also isn't someone to help do the dishes when I come home from a long day at work and just want to collapse, but I can't because I have dishes to do....

This was a nice little peek into the life of two women, both different, but who made their life together work. Good for them!

The narrator did a good job with this. I don't recall having to farf about with the volume a lot, though I know I did have to do it on occasion.

4, solid worth your time if you enjoy autobiographies of regular everyday people, stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Harper Audio Adult/Ecco for an ALC of this book to listen to and review.

[Amanda Nyanhongo]

It took a while for this book to kick off for me & I almost gave up on it but I'm glad I didn't. It was for my bookclub anyways so I wasn't going to lol!

This such a refreshing read! Sunwoo & Hana give us a real glimpse into their lives and how they came up about to living together. I loved and appreciated their honesty, it's so easy to see the admiration & respect they have for one another. The losses they've had to work through, the fights they've overcome & the happiness shared too!

I like how candid the ladies are about the fights they have and even the possibility of their arrangement coming to an end.

As someone who is queer and childfree (has no kids & doesn't want any), I often worry about what my life will look when I get older. There is very little representation of family structures outside of the nuclear, heterosexual family structure. This book helped me widen my imagination, eased some of my anxieties about growing older, and even made me look forward to growing older!

We still have a long way to go in terms of legislation that supports alternative family structures but we're off to a good start and can expand on it.

I do wish we had gotten a bit more insight into their dating lives lol! And admittedly, the sapphic in me was hoping they'd fall in love and live happily together forever! But perhaps romantic love isn't the ultimate form of love? Rather, the many types of loves that exist are valid in their own right and a different kind of fulfilment is derived from each type.

Do the ladies yearn for romantic love, is this something they're willing to explore ? Despite this being unclear to me, it doesn't take away from the book. They're both living very fulfilled & colorful lives.

I also enjoyed the cats, the food, and alcohol! I wished we got a bit more about Hana losing her Dad, it felt very rushed through & that's a major life event you know.

I learnt that we are able to curate our lives to exceed our expectations & defy society's expectations by charting our own course!

Oh what a lovely lovely read!

[Paige]

Enjoyable, unique memoir by two South Korean women about their choice to platonically cohabitate More practical (and cat focused!) than philosophical, but still a good time.

[Hannah]

I was really excited about this book to hear about a different living dynamic that more and more women are likely to encounter as more women choose to stay single.

It started ok-ish. But it never became what I was wanting. Each chapter just felt like a separate blog post or podcast that didn’t really link to the next chapter. It was like individual scattered thoughts or observations. It became uninteresting and difficult to finish unfortunately.

[ellie]

“In a world where nothing is absolutely good or bad, we want to focus our finite energy on talking about, remembering, and documenting the good things that deserve more attention.”

[Leigh Kramer]

A memoir of sorts about two friends, Hana and Sunwoo, who decide to buy an apartment together in Seoul. This was first published in South Korea after they've only lived together for two years, eight years as of this English edition which includes a few chapters with updates. While I think this would have been a better book had they lived together longer before writing it, I'm always interested in the stories of single women and all the more so if there's an unconventional living situation.

Sunwoo and Hana became internet friends in 2010 and met in person in 2016 and they bought their home by the end of that same year. They're both in their 40s and wanted the safety and stability of home ownership but needed to combine their finances in order to achieve that. I was shocked that they hadn't known each other longer (at least in real life) or at least tried being roommates before deciding to buy a home. That's a big leap and it could have gone badly! They don't even have a plan in place for breaking the arrangement if things go sour. Fingers crossed for them they don't regret that.

They refer to each other as cohabitant instead of roommate, which I found noteworthy. There are chapters about how they combined their households and how their four cats get along. There's a lot about Sunwoo as a hoarder and chaos agent. The chapters could be quite all over the place, perhaps better suited as an article than a book and dryer than I was hoping. However, I really enjoyed when they zoomed out for larger cultural implications, like exploring sexism toward daughters-in-law in South Korea or what legal protections they'd like to have as cohabitants.

Translated from the Korean by Gene Png.


Content notes: insomnia, sexism, fatphobia, surgery/hospitalization, lacerations, COVID-19, flu vaccination, death of parent (mention), death of pet cat, kidney stones (cat), chronic kidney disease (cat), hoarding, mortgage debt, alcohol, inebriation, gender essentialist language, hyperbolic language around addiction, Harry Potter references

[Daniela]

Some interesting points for sure, good food for thought!
That whole chap about the difference of living alone vs being single and “do towels have an expiration date? yes, the very moment you get new ones” has altered my brain chemistry.

[Tala&#x1f988; (mrs.skywalker.reads)]

i love you

[Ivy]

natalie natalie natalie, we should probably live together forever

[Sam Cheng]

Perhaps more accurately, “Two Women Take Out a Mortgage to Buy Their House.” Hana and Sunwoo first connect online, and becoming close friends, they decide to purchase a house in Seoul together, bringing their similarities, differences, and two cats per human (Haku, Tigger, Goro, and Youngbae). In their shared memoir, the two women take turns covering topics such as their jobs, cooking preferences, nuclear family, cleaning habits, work out rhythms, and views on marriage and familial duty. Told without linear progression, their essays on cohabitation provide anecdotes and outline tips for happier living arrangements, push against traditional configurations on one’s home, and point out their experiences on how the world treats unmarried women. Their cheerful tone exemplifies a way for single income households to diversify family structures, showcasing the benefits (and work) of cohabitation. I hoped the book would address my questions about dividing the property should Hana and Sunwoo decide to do so in the future.

Two Women Living Together immediately reminded me of the common practice, at least in my experience, of creating a home with your homies, viably extending the uni-is-one-big-sleepover phase into adulthood proper. The difference would be co-owning a house with a bestie in one’s 40s as opposed to sharing a lease (and not in one’s 40s). It stressed me out that the two women live differently—experience has led me to cohabitate with people I enjoy who live similarly. Hana and Sunwoo’s growth in their friendship made the read more intriguing.

I rate Two Women Living Together 3.5 stars.

My thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for an ARC.

[Gaby]

Okay, don’t get me wrong… I am happy that these two women are so content with their living situation. And I am sure that this can be inspiring to some, especially in the South-Korean context, but this didn’t really do it for me. It was still a cosy read in some ways. I liked the way they talked about how they supported each other & reading about their communities, but that was when I just started reading the book. It quickly became quite boring and repetitive, and I kept asking myself why I should be interested in these descriptions of their lives. I felt no real connection I think. I understand that real life can be repetitive and a bit boring as well, but then the writing also just didn’t stand out to me. Which I think is a shame!

I usually really love memoirs, so I had high hopes. But unfortunately this didn’t hit the spot for me.

[Marci Peace]

I enjoyed the early part of this book and the model of cohabitation that will increase as the younger generations face increased housing costs and fewer prospects from the pool of younger bro-verse men. The second half of the book was a slog of mundane household activities. This could have easily been a long form article.

[Marj]

Nothing revolutionary here, and the writing is fairly ordinary. But I’ll always root for women who refuse to live up to expectations and still live their best lives—with their cats.

[Kristi Hovington]

A student gave me this book, and it is wonderful, so thought provoking. I couldn’t put it down. This is a joint memoir of two successful women living in Korea who decide to buy a house together and make a platonic family. It’s a beautiful examination of the different ways one can arrange oneself outside of the traditional family structure; although society sees them as lacking something, their lives together are dynamic and full. And I have to say, although these two friends and co-home owners are just friends, the things they do for one another and the sacrifices they are willing to make are deeply romantic, more so than many marriages I know. More than anything, this is an ode to friendship and daring to be different.

[Jozi Dever]

This was cute but slightly different than I expected. It dove a little more into their personal life stories and I thought it would mostly discuss the perspectives and emotions regarding their unique living dynamic. However, they did reflect on it some and it was nice to hear some perspectives that align with thoughts I’ve had as someone who lives alone in my mid-twenties. I liked how real they were about challenges yet are such positive and optimistic people. I feel like it allowed me to reflect on myself, my habits, and partnership overall. 3.5⭐️

[Kelly]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
If I had my life to do over and I wasn't happily married, I'd consider the lifestyle of these two women. They're breaking the mold on cultural and societal norms and it's refreshing to read.
I can't imagine the courage it takes to go into a situation like these two have but I'm so happy it's working out for them. Their alternating stories are funny.

[Morayo]

Goodreads is a bit of an opp because they won’t let me tell you guys I finished this in one day and give this 4.5 stars. With that being said, I really liked this book.

Not to self insert (she says as she self inserts), I don’t think I would ever do this because my mind has been so conditioned to see this kind of relationship only with a romantic partner. I also live alone and I still value my space so so much but I can understand the change as you grow older to want companionship and for it not to be romantic. I mean I don’t get the not romantic part but the companionship. I also would like companionship but with a romantic partner.
At this stage in my life, the thought of another person being in my house is a bit??? Like why are you here? I love my girlie pops but I don’t want to see you all the time.
Even men, like am I sure?
But I think also I’ve not met all the people that will change my life and my perspective on things. That’s the beauty of getting older because you change

Now with the actual book, I liked both of them as individuals and as life partners doing life together. Even the cats and I do not like cats, in fact I am deeply terrified of them. Also it was so very optimistic and positive that it sometimes pissed me off.
However one thing Sunwoo said, and I am paraphrasing, was that there’s so much cynicism in the world that you must fight to see the light and all that. I want to be like this, I want to fight for pockets of joy
I love the community that they built around them. It really emphasises the point that you cannot do life alone and you were not meant to. They raised very important points about life partnership when the romance is not involved and it appears romance tends to complicate things? Idk

I also think it’s very chic to change your mind about stuff as you get older. Like yes they loved staying alone but then they decided you know what? I would like to share my space with someone else.

I liked that they both are doing life together and it has expanded beyond them. They have gone fast and far. It reminds me of that scripture in the bible that says one will chase a thousand and two will chase ten thousand. It’s a multiplying effect and not an addition and they’ve done very will for themselves. This will inspire others to go for “unconventional” dynamics. The hope is that the unconventional becomes conventional and that the whole term falls away because what does that even mean??

Read this for a different perspective on life partnership. Love you thanks bye

[LucyInTheSky]

Perfect book at the perfect time.

I recognised so many of the challenges Hana and Sunwoo face living together in my romantic relationship, while it also reminded me there are different ways to live, that friends are the best thing ever, laughter and sharing (good fortune, the hard things, good food…) and the right support at the right time, are the most important things.

I’m really impressed that these women figured out a way to live together, embracing their differences, even though it takes serious fights.

While reading this book I’ve had many serious conversations with my romantic partner, and sadly we came to the conclusion that we can’t make it work together. I can’t be more impressed with Hana and Sunwoo that they were able to figure it out. Even though I’m sad that my own relationship is coming to an end, this book gives me hope. Before, I’ve been by myself for years and years, living alone and being perfectly happy like Sunwoo and Hana were while they were living alone. It’s okay to go back to that. Also, it doesn’t have to be alone anymore - there are so many ways to live, and I’m once again reminded that I have amazing friends that I love to stay close to.

There are more takeaways from this book, but I think for now this review captures the mood ;)

[Corinne]

Rounding up from 3.5 stars. I think this worked well for me because I listened to the audiobook, so I was able to let the details wash over me if I wasn't as interested. I do find many of the details interesting as it relates to how these two women met, became friends and decided to cohabitate. How they made decisions around where to buy, how to furnish their home and how to split up chores and responsibilities. And as much as I enjoy domestic details (even in fiction books), this did venture into the mundane at times, and did get repetitive sometimes too.

This book appealed to me in large part because I love the idea of eventually living Golden Girl-style with my besties and this gave me lots of food for thought for that possible eventuality! Based on my substantial discomfort with the way they described their sometimes conflict, my number one takeaway would be that couples counselling to understand each other's conflict styles would be a pre-requisite before I ever lived with someone new!

I received an audio Advance Reader Copy from NetGalley and HarperAudio Adult in exchange for an honest review.