Play Book Tag discussion

I know I should be kinder and less critical of an honest effort and of the author’s good intentions, which are undeniable. But this book is definitely not for me.
I should have done more research about what it is about before deciding to pick it up, but I have always been a sucker for novels about libraries, bookshops and librarians, and I have also read some excellent books written by Korean authors. Pachinko and Whale come to mind.

This is not the ‘droid’ I was looking for.
Assembled almost entirely from motivational slogans that were such a fad a few decades ago, this is a self-help manual masquerading as a novel. There is no plot, all characters are cardboard caricatures of persons in trouble who find catharsis by visiting the local independent bookshop. The writing lacks any kind of subtlety or nuance, choosing the sledgehammer of declarative affirmations over any aspiring writer’s advice to show and not tell. Hwang Bo-Reum is not an anomaly or an accident in the landscape of modern publishing. I have noticed the same tendency to over-explain everything, to be driven by messaging instead of plot and characterization, in a lot of new authors and in a lot of highly rated bestsellers on the site. The sales figures speak for themselves: the real problem is me, and not the way these books are written.

Hwang Bo-Reum is definitely a passionate reader with excellent taste in the books she picks up, at least going by the titles she inappropriately appropriates in order to give a veneer of sophistication to her own prose. She insert essays in the text about the likes of:
Kent Harouf – ‘Our Souls at Night’
Nikos Kazantzakis – ‘Zorba the Greek’
Muriel Barbery – ‘The Elegance of the Hedgehog’ and more, not realizing how less than complimentary is the comparison between her efforts and these well known authors.
As you can gather from these remarks, I didn’t enjoy the ride. The journey was mostly cringeworthy material wrapped in sacharrine sweetness. There are a few redeeming qualities that eventually helped me finish the novel: the details about the way an independent bookshop can survive in competition with the large chains and the online retailers. I do hope such small havens will grace our communities for many more years to come, although I am more pessimistic than hopeful after seeing last month that the famous Gibert Jeune shop on boulevard St. Michel has closed its doors. I have spent many happy hours there, looking for bargain second hand books and audio CDs.
Secondly, the novel offers a fair commentary on the Korean obsession with work and on parental pressure on kids to conform. The author makes good arguments here that the work/life balance is skewed and that it produces serious mental problems. There is a non-fiction book mentioned repeatedly by the visitors to the bookshop: The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work. that is probably worth checking out, if it is not a fictional tome.

I read your book review with interest, Algernon. I too have encountered some books like this plotted around bookstores that seem saccharine and full of platitudes. Fortunately, there are better ones out there. I hope you like your next book better.

I do have several books among my favorites that deal with similar settings. I don't have time right now to list them all, but I know A.J. Fikry, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Jorge Luis Borges, Alberto Manguel , Bohumil Hrabal, Murakami are in there somewhere.
I don't want to sound elitist, but I find myself less patient with poor writing as I age.

This is sort of how I felt about The Midnight Library. Of course, having a somewhat different life doesn't solve anyone's personal issues. And then once the character has an epiphany, everything falls into place as far as job, relationship, etc. Same thing for books about mental health/neurodivergent challenges like Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and The Kiss Quotient, things turn positive unrealistically fast.

I think some of it has to do with age. When I was 20, I thought The Prophet and Jonathan Livingston Seagull were profound, as the concepts were new to me. And I know the books mentioned above were written in an effort to support young people who don't quite fit in.

I liked it more than you did, Algernon, but I think part of the reason is that I was reading it for a specific task to find a "comfort read," which is not the type of book I usually pick up. So, when it satisfied that requirement, I was happy with it. I agree that it is not particularly well-written.

Joy D wrote: "I liked it more than you did, Algernon, but I think part of the reason is that I was reading it for a specific task to find a "comfort read," which is not the type of book I usually pick up. So, wh..."

Reader expectations play a great part in the way we I react to a given text. If I know from the start that what I have in my hands is a fluffy and unrealistic romance that I can take with me to the beach for the day, I will be less likely to nitpick over style and characters. Or some monster sex novella where the heroine is saved by BigFoot and taken to his lair.

Algernon (Darth Anyan) wrote: "Joy D wrote: "I liked it more than you did, Algernon, but I think part of the reason is that I was reading it for a specific task to find a "comfort read," which is not the type of book I usually p..."
Agreed! Expectations definitely play a role for me too.