Cover of The Dallergut Dream Department Store. There is a building with many floors in the center, with a woman entering the front door. Behind the windows, you can see silhouettes of people, animals, space, and more. There are clouds surrounding the store in pinks, greens and purples, and an orange crescent moon behind the building.

The Dallergut Dream Department Store

Posted on September 24, 2024| By | In Book Reviews
Cover of The Dallergut Dream Department Store. There is a building with many floors in the center, with a woman entering the front door. Behind the windows, you can see silhouettes of people, animals, space, and more. There are clouds surrounding the store in pinks, greens and purples, and an orange crescent moon behind the building.

The Dallergut Dream Department Store

Yi, Mi-ye, translated by Sandy Joosun Lee. The Dallergut Dream Department Store. Toronto, Ontario : Hanover Square Press, 2024.

Dreaming of the perfect book to escape into next? 

The Dallergut Dream Department Store is a cozy, introspective novel about our relationship with dreams and what they mean to us. Brimming with whimsy and heart, readers will fall in love with the Dallergut Dream Department Store, its intriguing cast of characters, and its litany of dreams to purchase. 

At the heart of this story is the titular Dallergut Dream Department Store: a store that people can only visit in their dreams and sells as many dreams as you can imagine to clients all around the world—with multiple floors dedicated to specific types of dreams. It is the new workplace of Penny, a charming yet inexperienced young woman who is ecstatic to learn more about the world of dreams from Mr. Dallergut, the department store’s eccentric owner. 

Each chapter covers a specific type of dream, with an almost vignette-style of interwoven stories that center around the Dallergut Dream Department Store and new shop worker Penny, giving readers a clearer understanding of the role and power dreams play in this world—and maybe our own—with each turn of the page. 

The Dallergut Dream Department Store is the delightfully charming first book in a new duology perfect for fans of magical realism and Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold. It is available as a physical copy at your local library and audiobook via Hoopla.

 

Sara Durbin is a Library Assistant at Graham Public Library. They can be reached at sdurbin@alamancelibraries.org.