Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

177 reviews

bookishkale's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast weaves her heartbreaking tale of the loss of her mother into formation. She had me captured by her story, of her fears and her hopes, her losses and her gains, her failures and her successes on the backdrop of something so awful. She is a brilliant writer, doing her best to find some ease in her pain and I am blown away. Her finding her heritage through food is heartwarming. I just want to thank her for putting her story into words like this, I cannot imagine how hard it must have been. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcohol

Minor: Bullying, Racism, and Abortion

riverofpages's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

Just be warned -  you might cry.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism and Terminal illness

Minor: Cursing and Racism

peachythi_books's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

If there was ever a book that I felt connected to me its this one. The author had a beautiful way of describing the intricacies and unique harshness of an asian parents love and what it means. How their affection is shown in ways that isn’t always conventional. She wrote truthfully on her grief and hardships when confronted by her mother’s cancer. That, and how she had to take a productive role in her mother’s care and how that also led to her desperate attempts to reconnect to her Korean Identity that tied the two of them so closely together. Her internal and external conflicts were described wholly and honestly in explicit detail. I think anyone who has close ties to someone who was or is sick or someone who has an asian parent or parents will read this book and connect to it. But even with out that you are given incredible insight into the life of someone who had go through those experiences.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Terminal illness, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and Racism

bookedwithbrie's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Terminal illness, and Death of parent

Minor: Racism

kelly_e's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

Title: Crying in H Mart
Author: Michelle Zauner
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 3.0
Pub Date: April 21, 2021

T H R E E • W O R D S

Raw • Illuminating • Surface-level

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Crying in H Mart is a memoir about growing up, caregiving, death, grief and identity from Michelle Zauner.

She details growing up as one of the few Korean American kids at her school; of struggling with her mother's high expectations; of time spent with her mother's family in Seoul; of caring for her mother through the end of life; of death and grief; and of reconnecting with her identity.

💭 T H O U G H T S

Sometimes the hype can have an adverse effect on my reading experience, and that was certainly the case with Crying in H Mart. I went in expecting a life-alternating and moving memoir dealing with death and grief, yet I didn't get the emotional depth I'd anticipated.

That's not to say this wasn't an incredibly personal and healing journey for the author, which I imagine it was. It felt like a story which needed to be written, yet not necessarily read. The writing was accessible, and Michelle details an intimate look into the daily routine of caregiving for someone at the end of life. It's always interesting to read about how people discover their culture, especially in grief. And food does play a role throughout, however, I'd expected there to be more of how food is a source of human connection through the good and the bad. I just wanted more depth and emotion.

Crying in H Mart is a beautiful exploration of mother/daughter relationships and an open dialogue on dying and grief, it just wasn't the all encompassing sensory experience I'd been wanting or needing.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• readers looking for a mother/daughter memoir
• grievers

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people, those who had felt pain and those who had yet to."

"Food was an unspoken language between us, had come to symbolize our return to each other, our bonding, our common ground." 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Emotional abuse, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Drug use, Racism, Vomit, Medical trauma, and Alcohol

Minor: Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, and Abortion

deetabz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, Mental illness, Racism, Medical content, Car accident, Abortion, and Alcohol

Minor: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail

kaneekakapur's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, and Death of parent

Minor: Physical abuse and Racism

clarabooksit's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

This is not a book for the faint of heart. In it, Zauner reflects on her complicated relationship with her mother as her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer and rapidly declines. She also discusses many other things from growing up Korean American to food, music, and mental health, but the main thread is her mother, and those were the most impactful parts to me.

Like most memoirs, especially of this deeply personal kind, it feels weird to review it. How do you rate someone else’s truth? I don’t think it’s a perfect book but I also don’t really care. The chapter where Zauner’s mother ultimately succumbs to her illness made me sob.

This was a very tough read. It is so heartbreaking and full up of all the overwrought emotions brought on by death: regret, anger, denial, hurt, grief, nostalgia, misery, hopelessness, and love. While her story is not my story, it felt cathartic for me to read.

I don’t know how to recommend this book, but I do, if you need some commiseration and understanding.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Racism, Terminal illness, Grief, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

Minor: Abortion

andrea35's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer

Moderate: Racism

lowkeymarie's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

As beautiful as it is devastating. Zauner took an unspeakably painful and tragic event and created a courageous and profound tribute to her mother. I highly recommend the audiobook, narrated by the author.

This book deals very heavily with terminal illness and grief, so please tread carefully if that will be difficult for you to read about!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Racism and Abortion