... intoxicating ... Watching Young drift in and out of such love, always finding something valuable, even life-altering, to hold onto, is one of the book’s most notable pleasures ... In Park’s hands, Young is loud and obnoxious, insufferable and magnetic, messy and wise. The prose, translated by Anton Hur, reads like an iPhone screen, vibrant and addictive. What a joy it is to see such a profound exploration of contemporary queer life — its traumas and its ecstasies throbbing in harmony. It’s a shimmering addition to the recent genre of novels chronicling queer millennial malaise ... dazzling.
Translated by Anton Hur with startling immediacy, Park's English language debut...captures the ambiguous landscape inhabited by South Korean gays, of being both visible and unacknowledged ... Park's novel can be read as an anthropological approach to Seoulite queer lives in the 21st century ... By invoking these specific locations, Park—who calls himself a 'citizen-writer'—has poetically mapped out a normalizing zone for his gay protagonists so they can overcome the dichotomy between safety and exposure, public and private.
On this messy and moving journey, Park weaves in social and political commentary, from LGBTQ+ rights and abortion access, to class dynamics and gender roles in contemporary Seoul ... Anton Hur’s gorgeous translation captures the wit and bite of Park’s voice, which cuts through the novel’s romantic tenor like a blade. A runaway bestseller in South Korea, Love in the Big City is destined to be a global, queer cult classic. This is a bold, sparkling novel that encompasses what it feels like to be young and in love with life itself, surrounded by strangers and yet completely, wrenchingly alone.
