Recommended books by the Hankyoreh, Kyunghyang Shinmun, Maeil Business Newspaper, Segye Ilbo, Yonhap News, and Reading Newspaper
Happy Reading Movement Book of the Year (2016)
Gyeongnam Reading Festival Recommended Books (2014)
Morning Reading Recommended Books for Youth (2014)

Changbi Youth Literature Award winner Chu Jeong-gyeong
The warmest coming-of-age novel written for the wounded

"There is only one way to break the cycle of pain that keeps spreading."

'A heartwarming novel', 'It warmly comforts children who have been hurt in reality and have hidden deep within themselves', 'It makes readers look back on their own wounds through the healing process of violence.
‘It keenly captures the cycle of violence that is rampant in our society’, ‘We enter the bunker, face ourselves, grow up, and return to the world’… These are the praises poured on ‘A Place Where the Mind Rests: The Bunker’.

Everyone has their own 'room' where they hide their wounds.
"A Place for the Mind to Rest: The Bunker" is a healing novel that opens the door, invites someone in, and lets them bask in the warm sunlight.
Author Chu Jeong-gyeong, who made a splendid debut by winning the Changbi Youth Literature Award, created a world of unconventional works by recalling her own painful teenage years through "A Place Where the Mind Rests: Bunker," a fantastical story that weaves together the violence that occurs at school and at home, the physical and mental wounds it inflicts, and insights into recovery.
『A Place Where the Heart Rests: Bunker』, which has been consistently loved since its publication in 2013, was published in a revised edition in 2020, wearing a new look filled with its uniquely warm perspective.

The shocking experience of one child who was a victim but then suddenly became a perpetrator is closely interwoven with the story of another child who is the target of merciless violence at home and an equally tyrant at school, and it examines the easily escalating and reproducing nature of violence and the recovery and reconciliation we need within it.
The 'bunker' in the work is the only refuge for the wounded, and at the same time, it is a mysterious space that forces us to gradually confront the pain of ourselves and others that we had been avoiding, and ultimately leads to reconciliation and growth.
As you turn the pages, you become more and more moved, and the wounds in your heart that you had been ignoring become more and more vivid, speaking to you.
Now it's time to read "A Place Where the Mind Rests: The Bunker" and open the door to my heart.

It was almost 1:00 in the morning when I returned home after wandering around outside.
But the front door doesn't open.
The front door password had been changed.
Even though you can hear the sound of the door being pulled open, no one comes out to look.
As if I, a human being, had no meaning to the people inside this iron gate.
As I was getting back on the elevator and pressing the button, my heart suddenly started to pound.
I have nowhere to go.
There's nowhere for me to go in this 25th floor apartment.

--- p.115

I, too, found it easier to just think of him as a bad kid than to waste time looking inside the solid wall he'd built.
I didn't want to know or understand why the kid had become such a violent child.

--- p.12

“You think the kids are scared of you? Don’t be ridiculous.
“It’s not that I’m scared, it’s that I hate you.”
“Shut up!”
“Kim Ha-gyun, I heard you get beaten up at home?”
"shut up!"
“Your dad beats you like a dog!”
“Shut up!”
--- p.18

The classroom was as calm as the calm before a storm.
As several girls who sensed the atmosphere went out, the two children in front and behind the 4th platoon closed the door and blocked the entrance with their bodies.
A strange conspiracy began, one that no one agreed to, yet no one opposed.
A chill ran down my spine.
--- p.20~21

As I took a deep breath and entered the water, scanning the area near my legs, the blinking orange light reappeared near the opposite bank.
It felt as if the orange light was beckoning me to come there.
I walked towards the light as if I was possessed by the sea nymph Siren.
Soon a large cement pillar appeared before our eyes.
It was the lower part of the Han River bridge pier submerged in the river water, and strangely enough, there was a door in the middle that people could enter and exit.
It was a perfectly rectangular door, as if someone had made it on purpose.

--- p.37~38

Isn't my father's life truly that of a pitiful fuse? My heart aches.
Because the son of a tinderbox is just a tinderbox.
I don't think I'll ever live a life passionate enough to burn anything.
I feel like my life will turn to ashes before it can even burn brightly.
--- p.110

Maybe the guy did it on purpose, as if he wanted someone to end their day there.
Perhaps he was deliberately poking and blowing up the misfortune that had come upon him like a hornet's nest to see the end of it...
It was clear that the boy had taken the envelope his mother had handed him as a warning to leave home.
You may have felt like there was no more hope.
Eventually, I looked into the diary and found out what he really thought.

--- p.121

The walls shook and the fluorescent lights flickered at Messi's screams.
Meanwhile, Mino lost consciousness and fell to the floor, and the walls of the bunker began to move as if they were alive and breathing.
At that moment, the bunker shook violently as if an earthquake had occurred, and water suddenly gushed up to the hatch on the second floor.
As the hatch spewed out water as if spitting blood, the bunker lost its shape and began to shake more violently.
The moment I saw the wounded bunker wall swollen and red with blood, just like human flesh, I felt a chill.

--- p.188

Didn't my mother always say that everyone's life is the same?
If you open the lid, you will see that every household is carrying one or two headaches.
I lived believing that my house wasn't the only one where things were falling apart and bean powder was flying around, and that every house had at least one thing that was thrown and smashed.
Sometimes, I felt at ease when I heard the sound of the upstairs neighbors arguing.
But the moment I saw Woo Yoon-seok's text, I felt so sick that it almost hurt.
I was even envious of that guy who wore braces and always had foam at the mouth.
--- p.106

I was overcome with fear of looking deep into the hearts of others.
Moreover, I was concerned that the other person was Kim Ha-gyun, someone I had no interest in knowing.
No, actually, I was afraid that I would come to know and understand his true feelings.
I felt a sense of rejection, fearing that if I knew the deep-seated reasons behind why Kim Ha-gyun beat and tormented the children, I would come to understand and accept his violence as justified.
Anyway, I thought it would be easier to remember Kim Ha-gyun as that kind of 'bad guy'.
The saying, "If you get to know someone, they're a good person" has a hidden trap: if you put in the "time" and "effort" to get to know that person, most people will become understandable.

--- p.101~102

I am a sixteen year old who says that I am the envy of the world.
I'm sixteen, a brilliant age that I couldn't have even if I gave the whole world to have, but now my heart is like a marathon runner who has reached the halfway point and is exhausted and wants to collapse.
I am a sixteen-year-old marathon runner who knows that if I continue to live meaninglessly like this, my future will be just as difficult, or even more difficult, than the life I have lived so far.

--- p.229~230