Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

Lee Yeongju is the novel’s protagonist. She is the founder of Hyunam-dong Bookshop, though she previously worked as an office employee. She is characterized as a logical person who tries to rationalize her feelings before acting on them. At one point, her self-awareness causes her to say that she doesn’t know how to draw people close to her. Later, when she realizes that she has an emotional attachment to Seungwoo, she struggles to act on those feelings, afraid of repeating the challenges of her past relationship.

Yeongju’s backstory revolves around her resignation from her last job and her divorce, the details of which are fully revealed only toward the end of the novel. Hwang delays this exposition because, narratively, Yeongju suppresses thoughts of her ex-husband Chang-in since they hurt her. Additionally, her backstory is withheld to reflect Yeongju’s attempts to build a completely new life, defining her as a bookseller rather than an individual struggling with grief. However, the initial chapters hint at Yeongju’s trauma, as well as her recurring dilemma over her moral identity. The fact that Yeongju’s mother antagonized her through her divorce greatly lowered her self-esteem. Part of the novel’s resolution sees Yeongju disentangle her self-worth from her mother’s opinion of her.