Written by Jean Teule
Genre: Novel
Published in October 2007
213 pages


Do you think your life direction is not going as you intended it to be? Though you did your best, do you feel depressed due to bad things happening, or feel a lot of stress because of school grades and difficulties finding employment? I introduce this book to Keimyung University students who are in these circumstances. Through this book, students can gain courage and hope for their lives.

There are some people who feel that suicide is the only way out. They want to commit suicide because they think their life is a failure. In the book, there is a shop which people can go to buy things to do this: "Have you failed in life? We can guarantee a successful suicide!" They sell a variety of things like swords for cutting arteries and long sword for hara-kiri, poisonous gases and candy, among other things. The business is a long-standing family business and has always been successful.

One day, the owners had a serious problem with their youngest son, Alan. The shop should always be kept dark, gloomy and negative, but Alan was always full of happiness. Alan always tried to change the shop's atmosphere by switching customer's suicide goods and saying positive words to customers who had made up their mind to commit suicide, and he encouraged family members to change their negative thinking into positive thinking. For example, Alan changed a poisonous candy to a sweet candy and poison gas to laughing gas. At first, Alan's family hated this behavior, but suddenly everyone began to like what he was doing. The suicide shop now sells delicious crepes instead of suicide products. Previously, they had always greeted their customers like, "Pray for the bliss of the dead." However, now, they greet their customers with things like, "See you next time." And, the book ends with an interesting twist.

In this book, the writer said, "Life itself has a lot of worth. There is a way to overcome your problems when you failed or faced adversity. Because we always want a better life, it can sometimes lead us to destroy our life." If you follow Alan's ideas, you can start to see that your miseries and hardships are nothing, and you can also feel happiness. I have always believed I am very unhappy and my life is very hard. However, through this book, I became positive about my life.