Love in the Big City by Park Sang Young

Toji is back in 2025 with more exciting reads. In February, it will be time for Park Sang Young’s Love in the Big City. Park writes his debut with a wit and sense of humour that makes us savour every sentence intrigued and feeling involved in Young and Jaehee’s ways of stepping into adulthood. Hilariously funny, but also moving and heartbreaking at times, Park’s stories depict the many kinds of love that shape our lives from youth.

Love in the Big City is an energetic, joyful, and moving novel about 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 matches. He and Jaehee push away their anxieties about their love lives, families, and money with endless talks, rounds of frozen blueberries and Marlboro Reds. Over time, even Jaehee leaves Young to settle down. While he cares for his cancer-stricken mother, Young goes through a series of relationships, from a self-loathing activist to who might end up being the great love of his life.

Host or Publisher Toji Book Club