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.

My feelings on this one are a bit conflicting - on one hand, I could really relate to Jungmin's burnout and the resulting removal of herself from society, and events from her past continuing to haunt her into her twenties, hindering her ability to function. Going on this journey with her to heal through a hobby, slowly begin to engage in meaningful relationships after living reclusively for almost a year, and simply take things one day at a time sounded like everything I wanted in a book, and I did enjoy it while I was reading, but when I put it down I would struggle to pick it back up again. The pacing was just a bit too slow for my liking, and some of the characters didn't feel particularly memorable to me, I probably would have been more engaged by them if we had character POVs rather than third-person.

This is a sweet addition to the genre of Korean/Japanese novels about burn out and finding a new peace via gentle arts and crafts or via books.
I only took pottery classes for a few months in school and I wasn't very good at it all but very much like The Great Pottery Throwdown this book really made me want to try again.
As with many books in this genre there's quite a cast of characters all working through their own issues and while I'd have liked to have heard from more of them I finished this book feeling very satisfied and very relaxed - and also very glad that a new Korean food shop has opened in the city where I live so I can try some of the food they mention!

Whilst I did find this book heartwarming and uplifting, I also found it slightly harder to keep picking up. I feel that for a reader who would like a little pick me up in a book, this would definitely be the book for you! It’s an easy read and is a simple story which showcases how community and kindness can help someone in their lowest times. However, this book just didn’t do it for me and it may just be a case of right book, wrong time - I struggled to keep returning to the book and sometimes found the pace a little too slow for me. However, a lot of readers will love this book and it’s sweet, uplifting story!
Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book is exactly what I needed right now! I myself am a hobby ceramicist who’s going through a rough patch. Reading about Jungmin finding her spark again through ceramics inspired me to get back into the studio and get my hands on some clay!

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review!

Like many other people of a certain age in South Korea, Jungmin is experiencing severe burnout after years of grindingly hard work in a career as a screenwriter. As a result, she has become increasingly withdrawn and unable to interact in a normal fashion with the wider world.

Untilled finally one day, she ventures beyond the claustrophobic surroundings of her living space and re- discovers the world outside, albeit in a very limited fashion. By entering a pottery studio, Jungmin slowly learns to quieten the clamour within and without, harnessing the clay to summon serenity of a sort.

In the process, she meets other people, begins to engage with their stories, and - instead of merely existing - really starts living once again.

This is a warm hearted story of how loneliness, alienation and exhaustion can gradually be cured by community, kindness and re-engagement, so that life becomes something to enjoy rather than endure. It gets 3.5 stars.

"Maybe the pottery of blues and whites, much like those found in nature, had already stolen her heart. She found it fascinating that these hard ceramics made by human hands could resemble nature's hues quite so closely.

자연의 색을 닮은 푸르고 하얀 도자기들에 마음을 뺏긴 건지도 몰랐다. 인간이 만든 딱딱한 고체가 자연의 색을 쏙 빼닮을 수 있다는 것이 신기했다."

The Healing Season of Pottery is Claire Richards' translation of 공방의계절 by 연소민 (Yeon Somin).

As a lover of both translated fiction and Korean culture, I do try to read pretty much all the fiction that is translated from Korean into English, but a lot of it is then not the sort of avant-garde literary fiction I would normally seek - and the vibe here is I think best described as 'charming' - less generously, 'twee'.

30yo Jungmin has been flat-bound for months, suffering from burn-out and severe depression, when one day she forces herself to leave her flar:

"Three seasons went by with Jungmin mired in selfloathing. One summer morning, nine months after the thorn had pricked her right palm, she shot up from her chair and screamed. The words she blurted out contained no sensible resolutions or goals. They weren’t even sentences to begin with. Nothing more than an ‘exclamation’, devoid of fully formed words. But her cry was loaded with an immense pressure, something she needed to act on. In truth, this scream had been building since last spring. As her life as a recluse went on, she started to believe she might never be able to return to society and would die there alone. Hundreds of thousands of won kept vanishing with the simple act of breathing. It was as if each month she was being charged just to carry on living. Living a life worthy of that sum was the only way to ensure her money wasn’t going to waste."

Looking for a coffee shop, she accidentally wanders into a pottery workshop instead where she receives a warm, and unintrusive, welcome and finds healing, and meaning, in the craft of pottery and the community of those she learns it with. Adopting a stray cat also gives her a sense of purpose.

"She realized that there was no miracle cure for inertia better than responsibility. Her body, once heavy and waterlogged, grew light like a towel dried crisp in the sun. That feeble voice that’d echoed round her ears, questioning her right to take responsibility for another life, gradually faded away. There was no need for Jungmin to writhe or plead – the tightly- wound balls of yarn that suffocated her seemed to be unravelling of their own accord, one after another."

A trigger for Jungmin's retreat from society was realising that she was unable to fully take in art or literature - "She couldn’t find a single meaning hidden between the lines. Once she’d read more than five sentences, the contents would vanish from her mind – like a snowman lacking shade, melting helplessly under the morning sunlight" - and as she re-emerges from her 'cave' she is able to revisit an art exhibition where she had similarly struggled previously, and re-connect with it:

"Embedded here and there across my entire body, it seems, is the deep sorrow of a femme fatale, something that I cannot deny. No matter how I squirm and writhe, my sad legend is not erased."
Chun Kyung- ja, self- portrait, The 22nd Page of My Sad Legend , 1977

See here for the portrait: https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/The-22nd-Page-of-My-Sorrowful-Legend.jpg

For those new(er) to Korean literature, there is plenty of comprehensible cultural colour here (and I suspect Richards has skillfully inserted many glosses for the English reader) - hanja characters in names, honorific speech markers, the Korean education system, the ubiquity of TV features on cafes and restaurants, and various food dishes. Oddly, given the specific subject matter, I felt the aspects on the craft of pottery itself were less successful.

Ultimately this is well executed - but not my sort of book, hence the rating.

As a girlie who has wanted to get into pottery for so long, this filled me with so much joy! It was lovely. The characters were so sweet, and for once I didn't spend the whole novel hating the love interest. I thought the vibe of this book was just so warm and wonderful, and I would really recommend this to people as a perfect autumn read.

Tiktok is going to eat this book up!