PARK Sang-young : Love in the big city

Love in the Big City is the English-language debut of Sang Young Park, one of Korea’s most exciting young writers. A runaway bestseller, the novel hit the top five lists of all the major bookstores and went into nine printings. Both award-winning for its unique literary voice and perspective, and particularly resonant with young readers, it has been a phenomenon in Korea and is poised to capture a worldwide readership.
Love in the Big City is an energetic, joyful, and moving novel that depicts both the glittering nighttime world of Seoul and the bleary-eyed morning-after. Young is a cynical yet fun-loving Korean student who pinballs from home to class to the beds of recent Tinder matches. He and Jaehee, his female best friend and roommate, frequent nearby bars where they push away their anxieties about their love lives, families, and money with rounds of soju and ice-cold Marlboro Reds that they keep in their freezer. Yet over time, even Jaehee leaves Young to settle down, leaving him alone to care for his ailing mother and to find companionship in his relationships with a series of men, including one whose handsomeness is matched by his coldness, and another who might end up being the great love of his life.

 

 

 

I requested this novel from Netgalley who let me read it in exchange for my honest opinion, here it is :

While reading the first few chapters, I thought this wouldn't be a novel for me : people partying, sleeping around endlessly, no particular thoughts about life, just living for the moment, for the fun that felt more like a means of forgetting about an empty life. Not something I'm much interested about when there is no particular reason mentioned

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However, as the novel progressed, as his friend got married and started leading an adult life, as Young started talking about his mother, his past, his love life, I got wrapped up in what he was saying, experiencing, feeling and I found him touching and deeper than he first appeared. Living constantly with the consequences of his past up to the point when he has to think about other people's welfare before his own, Young was definitely using sarcasm to deal with a tough reality.

One thing I noticed while browsing other people's reviews, though, was that this novel is often referenced as funny, joyful and really, I found it rather depressing ! Not bad depressing, because it was a good novel and I'm very happy to have discovered this author, yet if you're looking for something light and fluffy, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for a realistic portrait of gay young Korean people in general, this novel is well worth the read.