A disappointing dnf

I was excited to read Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop because I thought the premise (woman quits high-stress job to run a bookshop) was fun and cute. It took me two weeks to read the first 60 pages before I decided to call it quits. I’ve read reviews that call Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop “comforting” and “gentle” but I just found it boring. Everything felt too long, too clique, and too general. I read some reviews that mention that the characters’ backstories are revealed later. I’ve read books where that progressive revelation really works, but here I just wasn’t compelled enough to stick around for the reveal.

Empty cliques:

• “If more people read, I think the world would become a better place” (39)
• “Being so busy, we’re usually left with only small pockets of time to read – perha[s in the morning, during lunch, in the evening after work and before we go to bed. But these pockets of time can add up to become something substantial” (39).

Awkward sentences that feel mistranslated:

• “The footfall soon trickled to a drop” (5)

Overlong, too much explanation, so generic:

• “If independent bookshops sprouting up on street corners and in alleyways was a trend, then the same could be said of such bookshops turning into cultural spaces. For the latter, it wasn’t like booksellers were jumping on the bandwagon just because it was the trendy thing to do. Hosting events was a business strategy–they had to attract a crowd to boost sales; bookshops couldn’t survive by just selling books” (35)
• “Minjun didn’t hate it. In fact, he found himself wanting to listen to her for a couple more hours after work, over a beer or something. As to why he would feel this way, he thought about it and concluded that perhaps if he was able to listen to someone rant for a few hours, he would also eventually be able to articulate his own struggles. For the first time, he was acutely aware of how lonely he’d been for a long time” (45).

This book felt like it was trying to be a novel, a memoir about running a bookstore, and an encouraging self-help book. I would be interested in reading any one of these individual things. Smooshed all together, though, it wasn’t any of these things. This wasn’t a book I wanted to continue.