Chapter 1 Dazzling
Chapter 2 If you want to live
Chapter 3: The Shining Darkness
Chapter 4 I never asked to be born
Chapter 5: The Possibilities of Shade

Author's Note
Recommendation

“I wish my mom had a boyfriend.”
The eternal love-hate relationship between mothers and daughters

“My mother was the Achilles heel of my heart.” (Page 44) The biggest worry of Eun-ho (‘I’), the protagonist of ‘Twenty Years Old’, is his mother.
Eun-ho, a typical 'K eldest daughter' and an ordinary model student, goes through a late puberty after starting to live alone after entering college.
The Department of Public Administration, which I entered because my mother said that becoming a civil servant was good, did not suit my aptitude, and the love I jumped into like a moth to a flame was easy from beginning to end.
One day, while his grades were plummeting and he was wandering around, his mother suddenly barged into his studio apartment.
Eun-ho's already complicated mind becomes a mess when his mother declares that they should live together from now on since she divorced his father.
Eunho's mother, who is only eighteen years older than him, is similar not only in appearance but also in her lifestyle: she is a part-time worker.
Eunho feels sorry and guilty toward his mother, who has worked hard to support him and his younger sibling since childhood, but he also feels frustrated and annoyed when he sees his mother constantly trying to control him and nagging him.
Eun-ho, who thinks that the problem is that her mother suddenly interferes in her life again, goes to the school counseling office and complains that she wishes her mother had a boyfriend.
Mom, who was working hard at the restaurant, meets a new 'male' friend as Eun-ho had wished, but things do not go as Eun-ho expected.
Eun-ho, who had been arguing with her mother repeatedly, impulsively applied for a leave of absence from school, and unilaterally declared a breakup with her long-time boyfriend, Jun-woo.
The conflict between Eun-ho and her mother, who were dissatisfied with each other's choices, explodes one day after a minor argument.
After a brief runaway and attempted suicide, Eun-ho returns to the counseling center and reflects on what happened, realizing that perhaps the problem lies in her own inability to become truly independent from her mother.
As a child, I experienced my mother running away from home, which made me anxious that I might be abandoned at any time, and because of that, whenever I felt that things weren't going well in my romantic relationships, I would repeatedly be the first to break up.
Eun-ho has always said that his life cannot be easy unless his mother's life becomes easy, and the realization that he is no different from his mother, who repeatedly tells him not to live like her, in that he believes his happiness depends on others, is a shock that hits him like a punch in the back of the head.
It wasn't just my mother who failed to properly maintain social distance and boundaries.
After going through various incidents and receiving counseling, Eun-ho begins to see her mother as an individual with her own desires, and her mother, seeing her daughter's changed attitude, begins to treat Eun-ho as an independent adult rather than as her own alter ego.
“At that moment, I was no one’s daughter, and my mother was no one’s mother.
“That’s how we were together freely.” (pp. 250-251) This was the moment when Mom and Eunho grew together.

We grow apart and together
A portrait of the dazzling youth living here and now.

In "Twenty in the Middle of Nowhere," Eun-ho isn't the only one experiencing growing pains.
Yoonji, a senior at the university that Eunho admired, drops out of the university she was forced to attend because of the family atmosphere where her father's word was law.
Yunji, who wanted to do something fulfilling rather than exhausting, found a job participating in a project to upcycle marine waste.
Eunho begins to dream a new dream for the future as he looks at the dream catcher made by Yoonji.
The character who shows the most mature side in the novel is Eun-ho's boyfriend, Jun-woo.
Junwoo, who explores philosophy and physics to gain a deeper understanding of the world, is a rare unicorn in today's world where most college students start preparing for employment as soon as they enter school.
Eun-ho feels complicated emotions as she watches Jun-woo, who was born into the same poor family but is focused on finding his own path rather than resenting his parents or feeling indebted to them.
At the same time, Eun-ho, who was pouring out her feelings of helplessness, despair, and irritation to Jun-woo, impulsively ends up breaking up with him.
Unlike her previous heartbreaks, the pain of breaking up with Junwoo is excruciating, but this time, Eunho begins to prepare to stand on her own.
How Eun-ho's future will unfold after being influenced by the people around him is not clearly revealed until the very end of the novel.
You could continue studying coffee while working part-time at a cafe and become a barista, or you could start studying psychology, which you became interested in while receiving counseling.
Alternatively, you could change your mind and prepare for the civil service exam again after returning to school.
You might skeptically ask what the point is if the place you arrive at after wandering around is not much different from where you started.
But what is clear is that no matter which path he chooses, Eunho will never stop trying to look into his own heart.
In an age where even the natural desire to balance work and life is dismissed as a luxury or fantasy, the struggles of Eun-ho, Yun-ji, and Jun-woo to find what they want are dazzling in themselves.

The first coming-of-age novel award winner
A work that asks what true growth means

“Like grass growing in a single raindrop, I was suddenly enlightened.” (Page 43) Eunho confesses this while recalling his childhood memory of not throwing a tantrum after seeing his mother struggle to feed her children.
However, this 'growing up' is closer to imitating adults than to true growth.
Author Jiyeon Choi says that true growth is not about internalizing and putting into practice the demands of parents, schools, and society, but about developing inner strength and standing on one's own as an independent person.
Knowing what you truly want and striving to achieve it is the way to become an adult and live a proper life.
Because growth is not a goal that ends once reached, but a process that requires continuous effort.
One day, when Eun-ho suddenly says that she wants to live like crazy, Yoon-ji replies that if she wants to live, she must die first.
Their conversation, which at first glance seems like a Zen question and answer, brings to mind a saying from the classic coming-of-age novel, 『Demian』.
“The bird struggles to break out of the egg.
The egg is the world.
“He who wants to be born must break the world.” The expression “The moment of worry is the moment of life” (page 55), which was selected as the most impressive sentence in the work by a panel of 100 readers, also makes us think about the value of worry, conflict, and wandering, which are often considered negative.
When we talk about growth, we tend to think of it as something that ends during adolescence when secondary sexual characteristics are developed, but in modern society, humans grow and change without rest.
Changbi Education's Coming-of-Age Novel Award was established to give meaning to the stories of people growing up in their own unique places in today's world, where there is no set path in life and it is not easy to find role models among those who have lived before.
Jiyeon Choi's full-length novel, "Twenty in the Middle of Nowhere," which won the first Coming-of-Age Novel Award, is a coming-of-age novel that can be read and empathized with by everyone, from teenagers suffering from growing pains to adults who vividly remember their twenties, filled with anxiety and confusion.
Readers who “still struggle to find answers within themselves, not external ones” (page 54) will find themselves cheering on Eun-ho as she struggles, while also offering comfort and encouragement to themselves.