Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Quero morrer, mas também quero comer tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee

11 reviews

suzyreadsbooks's review against another edition

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medium-paced

2.5

About 65% of this book was made up of therapy transcripts between Baek Sehee and her psychiatrist. She talks about feeling aimlessly depressed, inadequate, and self conscious. We get little pieces of advice, hear her confessions about deep-rooted feelings, see the repetitive nature of therapy, and witness the ups and downs of her experiences w psychiatric medication.
Following each transcript was a very short reflection on what it taught her. At the end, there are slightly longer reflections from her and her psychiatrist, and a slightly random collection of vignettes of Sehee’s feelings about various aspects of her life, such as her grandma, her dogs, and growing older. 

I would have loved an afterword with some context about how this book was received in South Korea, where it was originally published and became a bestseller. I imagine it’s been helpful for destigmatizing therapy and medication, especially for people who have never had these experiences themselves.

I felt like the transcripts were lacking context (e.g. suddenly her psychiatrist is speaking with her about a breakup, but we hadn’t been told that she had been broken up with), and it cut off somewhat arbitrarily after a 12 week period even though she was clearly going to continue sessions after that point. I wish that the proportion of transcripts vs reflections had been different.

It was interesting to see the very directive style of therapy. But this book made me realize that therapy sessions are sort of mundane if you’re not the one experiencing the specific concerns at hand. Like my therapy sessions might seem enlightening to me but could be basic advice to someone w different life experiences.

thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for the eARC!
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