Lynnie 
fantasy
This book was a disappointment. The Dallergut Dream Department Store has a beautiful cover and a fantastic premise:
There is a world that exists that is only accessible to most of us while
we sleep. In that time between falling asleep and dreaming, you can
visit this world and go to the dream department store (or apparently one
of its competitors) and buy a dream for the cost of half the emotions
that the dream brings out in you. Penny lives in this world and works at
the dream department store and… and that's kind of it.
This book had so much promise and I really wanted to like it, but truthfully I don’t know why I finished it. Sadly, the problems with this story are many, starting with our heroine, Penny. I was never particularly interested in her - she is a conduit to teach us about this world, as we learn about the Dallergut Dream Department Store as she does. But if anything goes wrong, if there are missteps or problems, it’s simply swept under the proverbial rug and everyone says that it’s no big deal, probably for the best. It was so weird!
I struggled to find a plot I was supposed to care about – is the story about Penny? Is the story about the store? Is there a customer I should be focusing on? I have no idea, but I think the answer to all of those questions is yes and no, but mostly no. Is it just a bad translation? Maybe the translator missed some key Korean ideas? I have no idea.
Lee Mi-ye does some wonderfully creative world-building in this book, and has some interesting ideas that have the spark of something I’d like to learn more about, but sadly it never gets any further than that. It all felt very superficial and dissatisfying in the end.
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