Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

14 reviews

kaylaswhitmore's review

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I may just be biased, since I am also a Korean-American woman who grew up in Eugene, Oregon…but this memoir is certainly a gift to all who read it, and especially children of Asian immigrants. Words can’t quite describe the bizarre, surreal experience I had reading Michelle’s recollections. In between reeling emotionally from the similarities between her mother and my own, I would find myself blinking as familiar staples of my Eugene hometown popped up on every other page. Though my childhood and relationship to my mother is still quite different from Michelle’s, there were still so many things that struck me as familiar—like a funhouse mirror. Her use of emotion to paint such vivid pictures of the intangible truly drew me in and held me from the very first chapter. Someday, when the ache of her loss and the fear of losing my own mother fades, I will return to this book and reread it anew. For now, I’ll sit here in silence for a bit and cry lol.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Fatphobia, Grief, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Cursing, Car accident, Infidelity, and Body shaming

Minor: Vomit

edencameron's review

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Fatphobia, Alcoholism, Terminal illness, Body shaming, Death, Suicide, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Abortion, Addiction, Cursing, Grief, Medical trauma, and Mental illness

peachandmints's review

emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Physical abuse, Medical content, Cancer, Car accident, Terminal illness, Death, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Child abuse, and Abortion

skeptic_hecate's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.25

This one made me cry. The entire relationship dynamic reminded me of my mum and me. The weight comments along with the success and failure, with lots of love in the form of food. In our case, Georgian food. I cried so much imagining not even having a YouTube video to learn the wonderful georgian recipes my mum knows to cok so well. It is beautifully written. 4 stars because the writting gets a bit sloppy at the end, but I definitely recommend it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and Cancer

Moderate: Fatphobia

koplomps's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Body shaming, Car accident, and Fatphobia

Minor: Abortion and Alcohol

scmiller's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Cancer, Death of parent, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Body horror, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Vomit

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Abortion, Bullying, Car accident, Drug use, Racism, Addiction, Drug abuse, Excrement, Fatphobia, and Mental illness

Minor: Infidelity and Religious bigotry

aksmith92's review

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

I don't really love rating memoirs—these books are when humans talk about their lives, the people in them, and usually challenging events. Memoirs usually do or do not do it for me in terms of a great reading experience, and Crying in H Mart did it for me.

Michelle Zauner talks about her upbringing in this memoir—she's living a decent life and recognizes that, but somehow does not get along super well with her parents, particularly her mom. I don't know about you, but as a teenage girl once, this was highly relatable.

More importantly, though, this memoir talks about Michelle's identity as a half-Korean woman, trying to find solstice and being in the food she grew up hearing about and/or eating. She struggles regularly with her identity since she barely speaks the Korean language and only visits Korea every so often. And most important, this book is about dealing with grief and, acknowledging and accepting your past, and moving on from it during traumatic times. There is no mystery or spoiler here: Michelle talks about her family's experience with her mother's cancer diagnosis.

Michelle feels real in this book. She makes decisions you question and doesn't always know the answer. However, the heart in this book is so apparent, and it is simply moving. Not to mention all the incredible references to Korean recipes—this was SO good to add. 

I do feel the 50-70% dragged just a little bit, but overall, this was an incredibly captivating story about a woman finding her own identity in massive grief while leaning on some of the most amazing food recipes she can to feel in her place and with her family. Highly recommend this memoir!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Car accident, Body shaming, Death of parent, Medical content, Cancer, Medical trauma, Cursing, and Grief

Moderate: Abortion, Fatphobia, and Alcohol

Minor: Addiction

Addiction = not described, but talked about when describing someone's past. Also implied with a potential alcohol addiction.

sapphotoni's review

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

sad 🥲

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Content Warnings

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

Minor: Alcohol, Car accident, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Fatphobia, Excrement, and Vomit

lauradoyaga's review

Child abuse, fat phobia, boring, poor writing

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Body shaming, and Fatphobia

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

2.5

I don't even really know what to say, but I will try to put something about the reading experience into words.

It was alright.  I teared up a few times.  The descriptions of food were verbose and evocative, sometimes excessively so.  I love Maangchi.

This is a story of grief and mourning, of finding your identity and how it changes as you grow, relationships and connections.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Alcohol, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Death, Excrement, and Fatphobia

Minor: Abortion, Body shaming, Drug use, Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Car accident, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Eating disorder, Religious bigotry, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, and Sexism