Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop

by Hwang Bo-Reum

The books welcomed her back with open arms without judging the person she’d become, and accepted her for who she was.

But when people don’t read, you can’t just call it a problem. It’s not that straightforward. There’re so many reasons: being busy, having no emotional bandwidth or time. It’s because we’re living in such a suffocating society.

It was part of the balance of life – a person’s dream coming true could mean the collapse of someone else’s life.

What propels life forward are decisions. It came to him that what he needed to do was not to give up, but to make a decision – to step away from the path he’d been walking on.

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.

Instead of giving up my way of life to love him, I gave up on him to pursue my life.

I came to dislike wanting to find a job. I’m having fun now. That’s enough and isn’t this what life is about?’

being able to end things that don’t work is a way of living well.

Good things in books shouldn’t just stay in ink and on paper. I want things happening around me to be good stories that can be shared with others.