December 1, 2024
Kim's debut, a bestseller in Korea, is a literary healing fiction title about a laundromat in Seoul that is a haven for its patrons. When a notebook is left behind amid the laundry, customers begin to write diary entries in it and eventually join forces to solve a mystery and make the world a better place. Prepub Alert.
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Starred review from December 1, 2024
Amidst contemporary challenges ranging from daily chaos to genocidal war, more books featuring quotidian places transformed into restorative havens are hitting shelves, featuring caf�s, libraries, shops, and, more recently, laundromats, where troubled souls can get refreshed. Welcome to Smiley Laundromat, open 24/7 in Seoul's Yeonnam-dong neighborhood. Besides the usual machines, there are free coffee and wonderful books to share; also inside is an olive-green diary that becomes an inviting confessional-of-sorts. Between the pages, strangers make serendipitous connections, revealed in La Ronde-esque chapters. While Old Jang and his canine soulmate, Jindol, wash a Jindol-accidented blanket, Old Jang notices a troubling entry, "I don't want to live anymore. Why is life so hard?" He meets exhausted Mira, a repeat visitor struggling with so much more than her daughter's bedwetting, which leads to mutually lifesaving bonds. Fortuitous links continue. A struggling screenwriter finds true love, a songwriter goes viral, a bullied art student reclaims her agency, an older brother avenges his younger brother's suicide, a father and son reconcile. Strangers--who recognize each other from the distinct scent of the amber-lavender cotton dryer sheets that follows (and guards?) them--become protectors, friends, even family, as the mysterious diary enables intertwined paths while revealing deeper truths. Debuting author Kim's bestseller, smoothly translated by polyglot Tan, provides lucky anglophone audiences with a welcoming escape.
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