Jodie's Reviews > Soyangri Book Kitchen

3.5 stars rounded up!!

Soyangri Book Kitchen is gentle healing fiction that follows different characters as they make their way to a quiet book cafe/bed & breakfast run by Yoojin.

Each chapter focuses on a new visitor, all carrying their own struggles, and shows how the cafe offers them rest, reflection, and small moments of healing. I feel like we'd actually all benefit from a trip to the Soyangri Book Kitchen ourselves!

This book reminded me a lot of other popular Asian Fiction in structure (namely The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park or Before the Coffee gets cold). If you like these or other books with a single central location and different stories told through its visitors, I recommend picking this one up too!

That said, some of the stories blurred together, and the shifting POVs sometimes pulled me out of the flow. I think I would’ve connected more if Yoojin had been the anchor of the story.

Still, it’s soothing and gave me the hug in form of a book experience, even if it didn’t leave a deep emotional mark.
A promising debut, and I’ll be curious to see what the author writes next!