This story will soothe you, give you hope, provide calm from your chaotic mind with a touch of warmth, friendship and the simple joys of sharing food, conversation and laughs.

📚 Marigold Mind Laundry 📚
🔮 Fantasy
📖 248 pages
📖 13 chapters
✅ Positive, reflective narrative
✖️ Left wanting more
✖️ Might recommend
🔄 Might read again
⭐ Rating: 3/5

Thank you, Random House UK, for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Marigold Mind Laundry had many elements I typically enjoy in translated fiction, particularly its overall positive and reflective narrative. However, I struggled to connect with the characters.

My main issue stemmed from the overly detailed backstory explaining the magic system and the origins of the mind laundry. I prefer a gradual unveiling of how things work, allowing mystery and discovery to unfold as the plot progresses. Unfortunately, having everything laid out before the story really began dulled my engagement and made it harder to invest in the characters.

That said, the writing was a delight, with its thoughtful perspective on life. I appreciated how it explored the idea that we can't just erase bad moments; they are necessary to help us recognize and appreciate the good.

Perhaps this is a case of "right book, wrong time." I might revisit it in the future with a fresh perspective, and my feelings may evolve.

⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK for this arc.
The idea of a magical laundromat that can cleanse hearts was an intriguing one, but the start of the story felt rushed. It felt like the author could’ve spent more time setting up Jieun’s journey by giving more focus to her parents’ story first. I haven’t finished this book because I just couldn’t connect with the writing style. Having said that, I do see how stories such as this have become popular among the readers (of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, for example). These are the kind of books that may give you answers you can’t find in real life, and they will always find the right audience.

In the few Korean translations I have read and in many KDramas too, I have found a hint of magic. A place or an object that heals, mends broken hearts, and even changes fate. I have fallen in love with that magic, with that comfort it provides me.

Marigold Mind Laundry is the latest addition to all things Korean that I love. Jieun is at the centre of this book. She is granted the power to heal and to make dreams come true. When she accidentally loses her parents, she binds herself in a cycle of million rebirths, trying to find them. During one such time, she finds herself in Marigold where she creates a laundry to soothe people’s pain. While comforting some lovely people here, she also learns to smile and live once more.

I loved this book. The characters are loveable and relatable. Their pain made me cry and I could smile when they were soothed. I found comfort in knowing that memories are what make us what we are but it’s okay to let go of pain if it stops you from moving forward. All the Korean words, that are now as familiar as our first language, spread through the book made me really happy. I could live in this town of possible and make the characters my friends. It does get philosophical but that’s part of the story.

In short, this should be on your list if you are a fan of healing fiction. Or if you also love that Korean magic feeling.🫰

I must first disclose that I couldn't bring myself to finish this book. The main reason is that this is another (!!!) book in the now mindnumbing genre of an author stuffing tearjerking stories into a meta narrative with some aspect of magical realism. There are just too many, of which I actually read Goodnight Tokyo, The Full Moon Coffee Shop, We'll Prescribe You a Cat, and, of course, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and its frivolous sequels.

Honestly - all these books are the same book, there is nothing meaningful to distinguish between them, and the fact that this meaningless writing keeps getting published makes me start losing faith in contemporary literature and modern publishing.

If you are a reader who enjoyed the books I mention above, you might indeed enjoy this one too. However, I can't personally recommend it to anyone.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

3.5 rounded up to 4.

An interesting read, slightly surreal, but still enjoyable. I've read a lot of translated fiction recently and, whilst not the best, it was a great setting and an enjoyable read.

Marigold Mind Laundry is the first published English translation of Korean author Yun Jungeun's novels. Delving into the everyday lives of Korean people, the author paints a sweet and enjoyable portrait of what it's like to live with pain.

Jieun lived many lives—too many for her taste. After badly using her powers and making her parents disappear forever, the girl has to live with regrets and solitude. Then one day, she opens a laundromat at the top of a hill, the Marigold Mind Laundry, a place where people can come in to erase their deepest pains. If Jieun cannot be happy, she is determined to redirect others onto the path of joy. A failed filmmaker, a hurt lover, a bullied boy, and a hardworking woman; through meeting all these people, what if Jieun could unconsciously find her way to making peace with her past? What if she, too, could be content with herself?

Marigold Mind Laundry is one of those titles that grabs your attention when you are lost in life. Not only does the book cover fill you with joy (these colours!!), but its blurb catches you off guard by how relatable the story is. And once you start reading, it truly warms your heart. Shanna Tan, the translator, also did a superb job in creating a beautiful English text; the prose reads poetically, the words are beautiful and some read like life lessons that will stick with you for a long time.

I could relate in some way or another to each character, but perhaps even more to Jaeha, whose creative vocation and struggles hit close to home. Yeongja made me think about my mother, too. Somehow, it must be the power of healing fiction, to target our pains, our joys, our desperate measures, and to do something with them—to make us better. I think it is a success with this one. The stories were well-dosed, with similarities and differences to make the story progress well. Contrary to other healing fiction I read (mostly Japanese, I admit), Yun was innovative in not making the story a one-way healing process. While others are healing and learning from their past mistakes, Jieun learns a lot, too. The dynamics of young/old people are also pertinent since they point out that age doesn't matter when it comes to learning in life. Life is an eternal process of making mistakes, learning, and growing past them. Thence, Jieun learns a lot from the youngest in this story. I appreciated that because, most often, the eldest are the ones to be considered worthy of teaching younger people, yet sometimes the opposite is as worthy and is even better. Yun thus proved she could break the conventional codes of healing fiction and traditions. It was interesting to read. She also demonstrates that sometimes, by sticking to their bubbles, some people inflict themselves more pain than others do; so it's important to realise that it depends on us, and us only, to accept our faults.

If I didn't give it a fourth star, it is mainly because, as I mentioned, I already read a lot of healing fiction, and its themes are always more or less the same. It is not bad in itself, considering they tackle a lot of Korea's social issues (single parenthood, bullying at school, unemployment, etc.). But to me, it didn't feel entertaining enough to bring the rating higher. The magical/mythical aspect of the story was interesting, as was its concept of erasing pain through laundry, but other than that, it remained a bit redundant for me. I still believe it's a very nice read that many readers will really appreciate and relate to.

I will recommend it to my friends and family who like the genre and Korean fiction!

Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for allowing me to read and review this title.

Just finished reading this!

I love this kind of book! So heart-warming and peaceful! It's been long time I felt inspiring after reading a book, and this book, revoke that feeling again.

As synopsis said, this book is about a woman who's been cursed to live thousand years because she can't control her power in the past. In current life, she open a "Mind Laundry" service, for people who want to erase their traumatic memories. It contains several stories about people who want to use her service.

What I like about this book:
1. It has beautiful narration. The author has beautiful way to deliver her imagination to reader, such as how the Marigold village is, how the magic work, etc. So I can imagine the details about its setting and story really well.
2. The author describe all characters feeling really well. We can feel how traumatic they are, until how they do self reflecting to be better version of themselves.
3. It has great lesson about our daily life. Somehow, it reminds me to start pay attention towards little things in my daily life.

Definitely I'll re-read again, because this book gave me positive energy. I also curious with the ilustration that will appear in the real book.

I am sure this book will be one of best seller in Korean Literature. This is so comforting, heart-warming and inspiring! (I'll make my full review on my blog soon!).

Thank you Netgalley and Random House UK , Transworld Publisher for the ARC!

I’ve got to say, I’m an absolute sucker for these nostalgic, turn-back-time, erase-the-memory magical realism novels lately. If you enjoyed Before the Coffee Gets Cold, then you’ll enjoy this sentimental and emotional book. After young Jieun accidentally misuses her powers, causing her beloved family to vanish, she lives a million restless lives in search of them. In the village of Marigold, set atop a hill, Jieun operates a ‘mind laundry’, where she cleanses one’s heart of painful experiences. The story focuses on five characters: a young woman who discovers her first love has been cheating, a social media influencer wrapped up and lost in the digital world, a frustrated filmmaker, a mother whose husband has another family, and a photographer who has been incessantly bullied. Human, compassionate and kind to the soul, this book is full of life lessons, if not leaning a little airy-fairy. I’d love to see this serialised into a K-drama.

A short and very sweet story about a young Korean girl who overhears her parents discussing the discovery that she has inherited magical powers. That night, unsure of how to manage her magic, she accidentally dreams her parents away.

In order to help herself, she first has to help others. In the Marigold Mind Laundry, those who are hurting can wash away their sorrow and iron out the creases of sadness. But can pain ever become flowers and light? Do our hearts need both warmth and cold, happiness as well as sadness?

The characters were beautifully written and the writing really drew me in as the unlikely little group supported each other, while learning some important life lessons.

3.5 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, Jungeun Yun and Random House for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This was a really cute story, it had good character development and I enjoyed how to all came together throughout the book. I liked the concept and think it was as fleshed out as it could be for the length of the book! This would be a great read for someone looking to finish a book over a cosy weekend in a blanket!

i absolutely adored this and devoured it in one sitting!

i loved seeing jieun grow over the course of the book and going from living a pretty miserable life to using her gifts for good and to help those in need. i really enjoyed the writing style too and the imagery was just gorgeous.

i’ll definitely be on the lookout for more to read from this author!

thank you so much to netgalley, the publisher and the author for the arc 🫶🏻

This is the first book I have read from this author, but I do tend to enjoy Japanese/Korean writing as they always read quite gentle and are thought provoking.

This book is no exception- our main character Jieun having such a difficult start to life through no real fault of her own, then finding herself, then finally “cleaning” herself to where she needs to be.

I found this very sad, but also hopeful and uplifting. It’s beautiful.

I feel the translation has been done very well with this story.

My thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Reading Marigold Magical Laundry felt like embarking on my own journey of healing and self-discovery. From the very first page, I was drawn into the life of Jieun, a girl with mysterious powers who, through a heartbreaking accident, causes her family to vanish. I could feel her grief and determination as she set off to find them, and before long, her journey gave birth to something magical—a laundry shop that does far more than clean clothes.

I found the idea of a magical laundry shop fascinating. The way it “cleanses” not just clothes but the hearts of those who visit struck a chord with me. Every character who steps into Jieun’s shop carries emotional baggage, and by the time they leave, they’re transformed in ways that feel both touching and real. It's not just their clothes that are refreshed—it's their very souls. Reading about these transformations made me reflect on my own moments of pain and healing.

What really stayed with me was the theme of self-awareness and how it weaves through Jieun’s journey. She doesn’t just help others heal—she learns to forgive herself, to grow, and to understand the power of faith and friendship. Her story reminded me that healing isn’t something that happens overnight, but it’s something we can all experience with time, self-love, and patience.

Marigold Magical Laundry is a story that’s not just for fantasy lovers, but for anyone looking to explore the depth of human emotion. It pulled at my heartstrings, made me think deeply about self-love, and showed me that even in the most magical of settings, real human growth is what matters most. If you’re looking for a book that blends character building with a sense of relief and hope, this one is a gem.


I’d like to extend my thanks to Random House UK and @netgalley for providing me with a copy of Marigold Magical Laundry. This enchanting novel took me on an emotional journey that I wasn’t expecting, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to dive into this world.

I don’t know if it was a bad translation because I know this is a Korean bestseller, but I was extremely underwhelmed by this book. It felt like a child wrote it in parts honestly. The imagery was beautiful in many ways: the warm light, dancing clouds of red petals, steaming mugs of tea, rows and rows of swaying white T-shirts pegged to washing lines on a roof with sea views - but the story was so rushed that I felt almost nothing for the characters.

The opening chapters somehow flew through Jieun’s parents meeting, falling in love, marrying, having a child, the child growing up and overhearing an exceptionally brief conversation about her magic powers, her falling asleep and dreaming about her parents being gone and waking up to it being true, then going on a journey searching for them spanning decades or centuries, multiple lives and rebirths, leading to her winding up in Marigold and, after one conversation with the ajumma at the snack shop, building the Mind Laundry in her head and materialising it into existence.

If you have whiplash from the speed of that summary then you will understand how I felt as the reader. The author could have spent half a book on this setup and it would have been an amazing, heartbreaking story that led into Jieun finding her purpose and happiness at the laundry, instead of trying to rush through the setup to get to the story they wanted to tell. I wanted to hear so much more about the special village Jieun grew up in and the magic systems of the chosen ones and how that all worked. In the end it was just disappointing, and would need editing heavily to make it an enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for this DRC in return for an honest review.

This moving, thought-provoking little novel follows Jieun, who was born with magical gifts and abilities. After the death of her parents, Jieun is cursed to live a million reincarnations before she can fully die and be reunited with them. Jieun lives her lives in misery until her current incarnation, where she realises she can use her gifts for good. The Marigold Mind Laundry is her way of helping others through their suffering and on the way she is re-introduced to human friendship and kindness.

This novel raises questions about the impact of our experiences on our lives – whether good or bad – and what we would do given the choice to be able to erase the past. The idea of living in the present and not dwelling on the past in order to be fulfilled is an old one but packs an extra emotional punch when viewed through the eyes of someone who has lived thousands of lifetimes in a state of abject sadness.
Full of beautiful imagery, this novel brought up so many feelings for me – hope, laughter, hunger (there were a lot of mentions of amazing Korean food!) and sadness (there was one point where I had to sit and cry for about 30 minutes after reading one particular chapter). It emphasises the power of friendship and connections, if only we learn to let others in.

I would recommend this for fans of Before The Coffee Gets Cold and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop.

As someone who enjoys novels of this genre which are translated from the Korean, I requested this arc with high hopes. Sadly, I didn't engage with it as I was hoping that I would. The premise sounds amazing - going to a laundry where, as the blurb tells us, Jieun 'cleanses painful experiences from the heart, transferring them into stains on a T-shirt and turning them into dazzling red petals'. It does make you wonder which painful experience you yourself would want erasing. And as with literature of this type, there are five 'wounded souls' who visit the laundry. Jieun, we are told has magical powers which she accidentally misused which caused her family to disappear and so she has spent thousands of lifetimes searching for them. It is never explained how she manages to be reborn which I would have liked. In this present life she has created this Mind Laundry and now cleanses the pain of others when she seems unable to cleanse her own. The book is full of life lessons, I suppose, and self-healing. However, at times I did find it confusing to follow and Jieun, for all of her many lives, seems very naïve who ought to have taken advantage of the healing that she dispenses. The idea had such potential, I was disappointed not to enjoy it more.

thank you netgalley for the e-arc!

the book explores complex themes of memory, trauma, and the pursuit of healing. the story revolves around the concept of a service called "Marigold Mind Laundry," where individuals can have their painful or unwanted memories cleansed from their minds, much like laundering clothes. this process is intended to offer a fresh start to those burdened by their past.

Jieun, who is deeply scarred by traumatic experiences, seeks out the laundry service in hopes of finding peace. however, as the memories are gradually erased, the protagonist begins to question the true cost of forgetting. the narrative delves into the ethical implications of such a service, the importance of memory in shaping identity, and the psychological impact of erasing parts of one’s life.

and just like every healing book out there, this one definitely hits the spot. all of us were born to seek happiness, and the secret is in this very moment. today is the most special gift. no matter how many regrets you have, yesterday has passed, and tomorrow is the future that has yet to come, so what we should do is to be in the moment, to live our life today, perhaps the present is the magic given to us.

This took me a while to get through. I found the story jumped about a lot and the characters were tricky to keep track of. There are some lovely messages throughout and the concept of the mjd laundry itself is wonderful.

Worth a read if you enjoy translated fiction but be prepared for a bit of an obstacle course.

Marigold Mind Laundry is a delightful, cozy book that makes one think about life's challenges, heartaches, regrets, acceptance forgetting and remembering. The book made me question what I would do if I find myself in a similar situation of erasing the stains in my life or ironing the creases.

The book also touches on the theme of belonging and finding one's chosen family.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a simple book, full of life lessons.