[PREORDER] Shoko's Smile: Stories
T 2025his is a preorder book, available to order from 25 June to 10 July. Estimated arrival is 2–4 weeks after the preorder period ends (it may arrive sooner!).
Some friendships leave a light so gentle you hardly notice it’s gone until years later.
In Shoko’s Smile, Choi Eun-young explores the fragile, fleeting connections that shape our most vulnerable years and linger long after they end. Across seven luminous stories, we meet characters bound by small, significant moments: a letter never sent, a smile remembered across decades, a brief encounter that forever changes a life.
With gentle precision and quiet empathy, Choi paints the inner worlds of daughters, grandmothers, students, and friends as they navigate the tender space between belonging and solitude. These stories capture what it means to love imperfectly, to grow up carrying silences, and to recognize that some bonds are felt most keenly in their absence.
📗 In The Mood For…
Feeling Seen
Stories that honor the weight of emotions we rarely say aloud.
✅ Intimate portraits of quiet hearts and complicated ties
✅ Offers gentle solace for readers who treasure the small, fleeting connections in their own lives
Understanding Myself
Reflects on the delicate intersections of identity, family, and friendship.
✅ Gives voice to the interior worlds of those who rarely speak their truths
✅ Encourages readers to embrace the beauty and ache of incomplete stories
📘 Stories About…
Connection & Solitude
Each story is about the distances between people and what it takes to bridge them.
✅ Examines friendship, loss, and the longing to truly know one another
✅ Centers characters who grow through absence as much as through presence
Becoming & Belonging
Quiet, contemplative, and emotionally resonant.
✅ Explores the ways we come of age in relation to others
✅ Celebrates subtle, enduring bonds that leave lasting imprints