Dlwlrma’s Reviews > Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop > Status Update

“Minjun had resolved to be like Seymour – to not regret his decision. But what he needed was not resolve. He needed courage. The courage not to waver in the face of disappointment from others, the courage to stick to his beliefs and choices.”
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“As I close the book, I think to myself – I should stop labelling myself an inadequate person. I still have opportunities, don’t I? Opportunities to act kindly, to speak with compassion. Even a disappointing human like myself can still be, occasionally, a good person. The idea gives me strength. And for the days ahead, hope.”

I could try that.

“I’m just an ordinary human being. No matter how hard I try, I am nothing more than an ordinary person. Because I’m ordinary, I end up hurting others or making them sad. We smile at each other at the same time as we hurt each other.”

“Yeongju wanted to lash out at her and demand to know what crime she had committed. No matter how she tried to expel the fury, the thorn remained stabbed in her heart, making it tender to the touch, as if full of bruises.”

🫠

“I wish someone would appear and cut buttonholes in my shirt. Just to prove that I’m not a joke and I can fasten the second and the third buttons too. And while you’re here, cut the holes for my friends too.”

“I worked so hard only to look like a joke. My life’s a tragic comedy.”

Minjun got depth 🫠

“Of all life has to offer, only love is indispensable.’ Was love the most important thing in life? Did nothing else compare? Love is great, she thought. But indispensable? No, she didn’t agree. Just like how some thrive on love, it’s also possible to live without it. I’m doing quite well without love, she thought.”

“A good novel, to Yeongju, was one which would bring her to places beyond her expectations. In this book, her focus had initially been on the woman ‘walking away’, but later, she realised ‘love’ was what made everything possible. She mulled over how the woman starts to wear the glasses the man had left behind, even though it ruins her sight eventually – her final, desperate attempt to be close to him”

“lives. In the novels I like, the characters are like isolated islands. In the novels I love, the characters used to be like isolated islands, until their fates gradually intertwined”