I have no particularly strong feelings about this one, it was a better read than a lot of the other translated novels I've read - so I do think it was a pretty good translation but I wasn't super engrossed with the story.

I enjoyed the setting of the pottery studio and seeing Jungmin slowly come back to life once she found a new passion and a community. It had a nice message about how old trauma can linger and it's through giving yourself grace and connection that we can often find the solace needed to begin to heal and the pottery studio setting really worked as a perfect backdrop and metaphor for the story.

I don't have much else to say, unfortunately, while not a personal fav it's still one I can see recommending over the other Korean novels I've read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin General UK for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

a heartwarming story full of found family and the pursuit of happiness - left me with a warm fuzzy feeling

I enjoyed this read I didn't really know that healing fiction was a thing before reading this book and I did really enjoy this read and for sure will be reading more books in that genre and also books by this author.

It is official - I prefer Korean 'healing novels' to Japanese cat/Ghiblicore/twee ones. Having thoroughly enjoyed Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, I was delighted when my request for The Healing Season of Pottery was approved. Healing novels follow quite a specific formula/structure - the main character is rethinking their life by engaging in a wholesome activity such as running a bookshop, learning how to cook, opening a laundromat or discovering a new hobby. In this one, the protagonist joins a local pottery class. Close relatives of this type of novel are Western cosy fantasy (eg Legends and Lattes), cottagecore paperback romances (think those endless Cornish village books), Hallmark movies and Japanese cat/bookshop/coffeshop novels.

In The Healing Season of Pottery, we follow Jungmin, a woman who completely collapsed in her writing for broadcasting job and got a writers' block which sent her into deep depression and a life of a hermit. She stays in her silent one-bedroom apartment, she threw away the TV, she doesn't cook, she doesn't talk to anybody and she rarely leaves her flat. She discovers a local pottery class and slowly, little by little, rediscovers her will to live.

What sets the Korean ones apart, including The Healing Season of Pottery, is a more reserved exploration of emotions, a slower pace, coupled with slightly longer runtimes, which allows the reader to get to know not just the protagonist, but also their community, and, crucially, a focus on societal issues. American and British versions of this concept tend to be quite mindless ventures, whereas the Japanese ones focus on the supposedly 'universal' values and experiences, such as first love, grief or pride in one's work. We see the depressed characters in isolation, not as a part of a society which might have driven them into depression in the first place. The sort of anti-capitalist, or feminist messages Korean healing novels convey (not very forcefully, but they do convey them nevertheless) are reserved for the 'weird feminism' novels such as Sayaka Murata's works in Japan. In the Korean stories, the authors tend to be much more open about the societal specifics of what exactly drove the characters into depression.

In this one, I really appreciated the exploration of the predatory nature of broadcasting, the protagonist's former job. I also appreciated the extent to which both the protagonist and the author recognise the utter privilege of being able to just stop one's life for a year and live off savings without a job. Most depressed people don't get a chance to stay secluded in a flat which allows for privacy for months on end. I also loved the details of the reality of running a pottery class as a small business, including the discussion of the importance of Instagram. It was idealised and romanticised, but at least we got a glimpse of the economic reality of 'following your dreams'.

I wasn't sold on the romance, I was not sure what it added to the story. As a bonus, I am always suspicious of romances built on the love interest's breakup with their current partner. It was handled tactfully here, the protagonist was not the cause of the breakup, but I wasn't sure what Ara the girlfriend added to the story in the first place.

This is not a literary novel, so don't expect interest prose, or a deep exploration of human nature, or anything original in the narrative itself. As a novel, this is probably closer to 3 stars, but as a healing novel, it is really well-executed, so within its genre it is definitely a 4 star work.

This beautiful novel will stay in my mind for a long time! I admit I have become obsessed with the recent trend of healing fiction because of its heartwarming, community-led message. But THE HEALING SEASON OF POTTERY stands out to me because after many bookshop and cafe set novels in this space, this book offers a fresh take on the genre, centered around learning a new skill in order to find a way back into the world. A truly healing reading experience!

This was incredibly sweet and gentle, and really just a lovely book. It's a story of burnout, and of rejuvenation and finding joy in life again through creation, which I adore. It's very cosy, making it perfect for autumn/winter, reading under a blanket on a rainy day. I admit that I struggled to keep my focus as the book went on, despite it being a very short book at just over 250 pages, but it did make me want to go and try a pottery class!

I was in the mood for some gentle, healing fiction but this book really didn’t work for me.

What I liked:
👍 The cover art was inviting. While I think I prefer the North American cover (the cat is so cute!), I think this cover is more representative of the focus.
👍 When I started reading this book, the writing and descriptions in the first chapter calmed and comforted me.
👍 I liked the Hoya thread and wished we’d spent more time on it (maybe I prefer the ‘healing power of cats’ theme 🤔).
👍 Some of the descriptions of coffee and food were very well done.
👍 Even though I have zero interest in pottery, I found myself getting immersed in it!

Where it let me down:
👎 The book was boring. I’m not sure if it was trying to do too much and that’s why the characters, plot, and threads felt too surface level but nothing about this book grabbed or held my attention: characters felt more like caricatures than real people, threads (like Hoya) were introduced and dropped, time skips felt clunky and random.
👎 This is the first healing fiction I’ve read with an overt romance theme and I didn’t like it. It wasn’t empowering and felt like a weird theme for a healing fiction book. It might be a personal preference, but I prefer when women reconnect with themselves and prioritize their self-love as part of healing.
👎 Couldn’t connect with the instagram focus - sometimes, it felt more like Marketing for Social Media 101 than a novel. There was also way too much about characters’ jobs/schooling or characters whose only identity seems to be a job/schooling.
👎 Jungmin wasn’t an appealing character to me. She felt woefully immature (still bitter about elementary school, only realizing at 30+ that her mother is a person, etc.). But, that aside, Jungmin’s internalized capitalism was the most frustrating thing about her character. She’d collapsed under burnout and spent the better part of a year housebound but was so judgmental of others for not grindmaxing (when she first met Gisik) but held resentment toward her mom for working all the time. I will never understand the toxic relationship some folks have with jobs, according to Jungmin: “A seven-day weekend was a bottomless swamp of inertia.” Look at the word choices there: bottomless (insinuating sinking, falling), swamp (gross, mucky, sucking), inertia (lack of movement). God forbid we rest, recover, or *gasp* enjoy ourselves and find joy, solace, and peace not being at a job. 🙄 This book doesn’t have any commentary or criticism of capitalism (compared to the wonderful Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop which did this beautifully) but came across as more apologist which really didn’t work for me.
👎 Toward the end, the book takes a swerve into the religious too, which was weird.

While I felt this book lacked charm, focus, and has too strange priorities to work as a healing fiction novel, perhaps romance or women’s fiction readers might enjoy this more than I did. 🤷‍♀️

I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted through NetGalley. Thanks for letting me give it a try, Penguin, Viking.

A heartfelt story about finding your place and a slice of comfort in the serenity of loosing yourself in craft, The Healing Season of Pottery will keep you cosy!

There is such love in this novel about Jungmin finding herself and healing from her past. The narrative is told slowly, but with good pace like unraveling a spool of tread, or dare I say, shaping a vase on a potter’s wheel?

The characters are all lovely and you’ll want to cheer for them throughout even as you learn about their pasts and their unique struggles. This is one to curl up with a tea in your favourite mug.

Yeon Somin’s "The Healing Season of Pottery" is a poignant and beautifully crafted novel that explores the transformative power of art and the resilience of the human spirit.

This novel started off well with a lot of potential for the rest of the story. We meet Jungmin, an overworked, burned out broadcast writer. She has quit her job and moved to Ilsan, to Chestnut Burr Village. She is exhausted and has been living as a non-existent person, until one day she goes for a walk and stumbled upon Soyo, what looks like a hidden cafe but is actually a pottery workshop. She meets Johee, the owner who makes her a cup or coffee.

Here begins her journey to starting learning how to make pottery. Learning how to properly shape clay, as an extension of her own hands, bonding with the other pottery members, slowly regaining her sense of self and recovering from burnout. From the beginning to the middle of the book, it was easy to read and I wanted to continue on Jungmin’s journey. I learned, as she did, the challenges and pitfalls to shaping pottery, the patience needed, the time in the kiln and how some pieces won’t make it. It is an ode to devotion, and has parallels to the life Jungmin begins living.

Throughout the book, there is a lot of over-explaining within the writing. For example, when she accidentally drops Gisik’s, another workshop goer, ring as she has been using his apron. This happens throughout the novel and makes it a bit boring to read.

There are also metaphors on every other page and they are strange. For example, worry spreading like liver spots across an old man’s wrinkled face, or feeling like a tile in a decor brochure, an expensive alluring tile. Or the car called breakup speeding up, or not doing something you enjoy likened to chewing gum that has lost flavour.

At times it felt like a teenager had written this book.

There were also a lot of characters that I forgot sometimes who they were - a character list would be nice to refer to, especially as the book is quite long and there can be a lot of pages before we meet that character again.

There were Korean words dotted around the story, it would have been useful if there were short explanations of the words through a footnote or at the end of the book.

More than halfway through the book, the author started to shift focus from Jungmin to the other characters which felt very random and out of place. Giving them whole chapters vs the first part where it was centred on Jungmin.

It also felt like the book should definitely be over by this point, the plot not having a structure and I I felt like I was reading and reading and only slowly getting through it. It could definitely be shorter than 300+ pages.

Overall, it is a book that has a lot of potential but quite a lot of editing needs to be done for it to retain its charm and engagement.

There’s an anime I love called Let’s Make a Mug Too and in my head, this book was going to have the same vibes…it did not.

The ‘healing’ part of the title should have been my clue to the self help vibe of this, so this is very much a case of this book not being the right fit for me personally.

I felt the characters were flat and while I enjoyed the pottery elements, they weren’t enough to carry this book for me and I found myself not wanting to pick it back up.

Thank you to netgalley for accepting my request to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was the first book I've read focused around Korean culture and it was interesting to learn about it.
I found the story cosy and heart warming, a reminder that it's ok to take time and focus on you, and it's never too late to start something new. I felt the topics of burnout, depression and loneliness were handled sensitively and carefully.
I would have preferred the story to continue around Jungmins life rather than exploring other characters, but that's just my preference.
I think this was a lovely, cosy read with a peaceful feel to it. I've never had a go at pottery or ceramics of any kind, but I'm very tempted to sign up to a class after reading this.

A beautiful cozy read. I really enjoyed unwinding and sitting down and reading about yungmin and her finding herself again. Beautifully wrote. You really feel like you’re in the pottery shop smelling the clay as you continue with the book. I couldn’t put it down and really recommend to anyone who needs a cozy slow pace novel.

Reading The Healing Season of Pottery is like drinking a hot cup of coffee on a winter’s day. It is charming, comforting and absolutely heartwarming.
This translated novel by the Korean author Yeon Somin follows Jungmin, a woman who has locked herself away after quitting her job as a broadcast writer. One day when she leaves the apartment, she stumbles upon a pottery studio called Soyo by accident. In this studio she finds friendship, love and regains her creative spark (she even manages to adopt an adorable cat).
Although I’m not familiar with the art of pottery, the descriptions in this book really caught my imagination. I particularly loved the way that ceramics like mugs and plates are paired with food and drink. For instance, the author talks about how a good mug can make coffee taste better. The feel of textured clay, the gloss of the glaze and the colour of the paint can all add to the experience. Different types of food and coffee match different types of ceramics and make you take more care when you eat. For Jungmin, moulding plates and bowls helps her to enjoy her food. It turns into an act of self-care.
Whilst there aren’t dramatic plot points in the novel, it was satisfying to see how each of the characters developed and grew. The gentle romance between Jungmin and Gisik was so sweet as well and really made me care about the characters.
The only thing that might make this book more difficult to read is if people are unfamiliar with the Korean language. The author includes some terms like ‘Unnie’ (meaning older sister) and attaches suffixes such as ‘ssi’ (a mark of formality) to names. They aren’t very difficult to understand in context though and anyone who enjoys K-dramas or K-pop will recognise these words.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys slow, slice of life stories or novels about the power of creativity. If you enjoyed calm, comforting books like Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong bookshop or Sweet Bean Paste, I think you’ll love this.

Jungmin (30yo) suffers from burnout and depression and she finds solace in the kindness of others and pottery.
The opening with the coffee contained one of the best writing that I had read about coffee.
Then, Jungmin’s reinventing of herself and the overall mood were amazing.
This could have been slightly shorter to keep the reader’s attention at all times and for a better pacing. Then, that would be at least a 4 star read for me.
The prose in most chapters are exquisite 5 stars for that.
The themes and the tone are wonderful as well.
Overall, 3.5 stars. (2.5 for the plot and characterisation)

3.5
Following Jungmin, a burnout adult, who for the first time in months leaves her flat and walks into the world of pottery, where she finds peace.

I really enjoyed the translation, once again Korean litterature really hits me with sunshine.
I enjoyed the structure of the novel, each chapter felt like it's own story following the same character. I did find it slightly confusing when half-way through we switched from only following Jungmin to following multiple characters that she has met through the pottery workshop. I enjoyed that a lot but it felt slightly unstructured. The pacing was perfect for the cozy and healing read, slow and calm, I never felt rushed.

The characters were interesting to observe, and following through their journeys, specifically Jungmin's healing journey after facing burnout. I felt compassion and kindness towards all characters.
The overall plot was slow and simple, which reflects how life is, especially in contrast to Jungmin's old career, which resulted in burnout.

The pottery aspect of the novel was my favourite, the use of creativity as a healing power when going through a rough patch was inspiring. As a creative, I really enjoyed all the pottery descriptions, and how the pottery left the workshops as well.

This read was an enjoyable, healing read, I would recommend to anyone that has found peace in art, as well as anyone in general. This read felt like a warm hug during a cold winter storm.

The healing seasons of pottery follows our main character, Jungmin, in the aftermath of career burnout, where she has been isolated for over a year. Now determined to take a small step back into society, Jungmin comes across a pottery studio tucked into a side street, and her journey follows her as she meets a variety of different people and hears their stories and learns to find meaning within life again.

This was simply the cosiest read. It felt melancholic at times, yet equally as hopeful, and I appreciated the way the author touched upon some serious topics, like the loneliness that can come from career burnout and depression. I particularly loved learning about the dynamics within Korean culture - like the honour and respect that younger people show to the elder, even if they don’t personally know them. The community aspect was particularly wholesome - the array of people Jungmin meets, though might have been side characters, were developed enough that they felt like their own characters.

In short, this was a story about healing through the kindness shown by other people, with beautiful descriptions of the process of pottery.

Overall I would definitely recommend to anyone who likes cosy asian literature!

this book has all the cute and cosy vibes you can think of (taking up pottery as a hobby, walking around the streets of seoul) and offers life lessons when you least expect them. an easy 5-star read! i can’t wait for it to come out this september because i plan to get the physical copy to re-read and annotate. it was THAT good.

A very sweet and wholesome book for someone who needs a book to soothe the soul and calm the nervous system!

A sweet book. This was an enjoyable read that felt warm and cozy. I enjoyed the narrator’s reflections and found it to be enjoyable. Not saccharine in tone, there is a very much a sense of peace and reflection with this book. The characters are nicely fleshed out and likeable.