Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

68 reviews

morgancleaver's review against another edition

challenging dark inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death of parent, and Grief

Minor: Excrement, Alcoholism, and Drug abuse

cepbreed's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I hate this book. It’s even worse that it’s a memoir, this is her actual life and yet I’m imparting all of my painful feelings onto her family. Michelle Zauner has crafted a story that has forced me to become both daughter and mother, a dangerous evolution for me, a daughter who is so single minded. I knew I would relate very rawly to her experience. I mean how could I not. I’m a half Korean half white girl born and raised in America whose connections to her heritage and mother are never good enough. That speaks for the daughter side of it all, but seeing Zauner take on the primary caregiver role for an extremely chronically ill person has put me entirely in my mother’s shoes. Obviously I didn’t die, but I was nearly there. I hated myself so much, for being so sickly, so full of hatred, so ugly, so weak, but my mother stood witness to it all. She absorbed my pain and never let hers show. Zauner’s words have cut deep into old scars and torn my heart in two. This memoir is everything to me and I’ll never be the same. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Death, Death of parent, Medical content, Cancer, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Abortion, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

Minor: Child abuse, Excrement, Car accident, and Vomit

takarakei's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

A deeply personal memoir about mother/daughter relationships, and being an Asian American balancing two cultures. Michelle's relationship with her mother (and father) is very complicated. Much of the book deals with her mother's battle with cancer (check full TW!). Those of Asian and particularly Korean heritage will find many cultural comforts, especially when it comes to Korean food descriptions. The art teacher passage/letter wrecked me. Being a fan of Japanese Breakfast, I never knew their first album was a picture of Michelle's mom and that she wrote some of the songs for her.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Mental illness and Excrement

Minor: Addiction, Racism, Alcoholism, Abortion, Infidelity, and Car accident

This book focuses very heavily on Michelle's mother's battle with cancer, and the struggle of caretaking through terminal illness. Michelle has a sometimes contentious relationship with both her parents. Her father deals with substance abuse issues.

sarahuwu's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

Zauner writes in a way that really allows connection with her emotion. If you’ve lost a parent I would highly recommend being in a good headspace before reading this.

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Content Warnings

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

ava_ba's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Nami and Peter deserve everything, Kye is going straight to hell

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death, Chronic illness, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Car accident, and Pregnancy

Minor: Abortion, Xenophobia, Alcoholism, Excrement, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Infidelity

anielabooks's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.25

I wan’t expecting to like this book as much as I did. Very touching memoir about the author struggling to figure out her identity as a mixed race person and connecting with her mother’s heritage after her death. The audiobook was narrated by the author herself, and I really appreciated the help to pronounce some of the dish names and Korean words.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Racism, Car accident, and Xenophobia

Minor: Alcohol, Violence, Drug use, Abortion, Excrement, Physical abuse, and Pregnancy

toffishay's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

A beautiful, emotional memoir about family and turmoil and loss and grief. I cried as my stomach growled reading about the delicious food that held so many memories. Our lives are these complicated tapestries of feelings and events. What an honor to read this exercise in exploring a life.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcohol, Medical content, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, and Vomit

Minor: Dysphoria, Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Car accident, Violence, Xenophobia, Abortion, and Mental illness

melisa_with1s's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Terminal illness, Death of parent, and Medical content

Minor: Vomit and Excrement

greenwillow77's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Body shaming

Minor: Excrement

macykey's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

I read this book in the span of 24 hours. It just, it touched me in a way that I think is special to people who have been caretakers to sick and dying people. This book is also a beautiful look at the relationships between mothers and daughters that I think transcend culture and ethnicity. I assume that I relate to this book a little more closely than a large majority of the people who’ll read it. I am whiter than snow, but I was still able to relate to so much of this story. I was one of the main  caretakers for my grandmother (Memaw) in the last years of her life. I’ve witnessed any number of things that nobody should have to see in multiple lifetimes. Like Michelle, a lot of my relationship with Memaw was based around food. Whether that was healthy or not is a separate issue, but that’s just the way it was. We ate dinner together every Thursday night for several years. She shared recipes with me and when she got too weak to bake on her own, I did a lot of the heavy lifting. And when she had to move into an assisted living facility, I made the food we made together on my own and brought it to her. I was a vegan for a long period of time, so I also managed to sneak some of my own vegan baking in there for her. I’m sure if I thought about it for a second, I could still make her heath pudding by heart. The only difference in mine and Michelle’s stories is that I was the only family that my Memaw had with her, so I made sure to get to know as much as I could about her while she was still alive. I read articles to her about Jimmy Carter, she loved Jimmy Carter. I helped her clean out her desk, which was a time capsule in and of itself, and found so many things that I was able to ask her about. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to say that Memaw was my person. She’s been gone since August and I miss her every single day. 

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Excrement, Xenophobia, Vomit, Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Car accident, and Addiction

Minor: Abortion