Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I want to say this is a heart-warming book about starting over and opening a bookshop and trying to follow your dream -- and it IS all of these things -- but it is also about burnout-recovery, life/work balance, healing, anxiety, and introversion.

That may also be heartwarming, but the worries are real and hit me just as hard since I've lived them. There is no official romance in this, either. There is the work, the work, and the work.

The trick is to do the work that makes you happy, of course, and to keep re-adjusting to make sure you are happy.


It's not entirely doable for all of us, of course. Not all of us will have worked and saved since being a kid to then drop it all into opening a bookstore. This is fantasy, of course, but it is a pretty, pretty thought.

Keep aiming for your happiness. Or rather, to quote Campbell, "Follow your bliss."



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