Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Crying in H Mart

“She would always suffer to bring me comfort, that that was how you knew someone really loved you.”

It’s hard to say that I enjoyed this memoir because it’s so heartbreaking but Michelle’s story of her mom is also so beautiful in the face of so much sadness. (Definitely recommend the audiobook.) It’s hard to understand the love between a mother and daughter when you’re an outsider but Michelle’s wonderful writing about her mom makes you feel enough of their bond to experience her grief.

I haven’t listened to Japanese Breakfast, but now I have to!

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isareader's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

A heartbreaking yet informative memoir from Zauner that touches on culture, identity, grief, and caregiving. I found her descriptions of how unconditionally and unapologetically she showed love to her mom and vice versa so touching, tearing up multiple times. I sometimes struggled to understand the repetition of the detailed descriptions of food and some moments that felt a little untied to thoughts, but I will remember this book for a long time!

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blyttgh's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

12/07/23 “Pretending to understand long enough to catch a glimpse of a word I recognized but eventually she asked a question I failed to comprehend and then she too realized that there was nothing left for her to relate to. Nothing more we could share.”

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toastyghosty13's review

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

I went into this book having heard that it was about the experiences (both good and bad) of an American woman of half Korean half White descent. I expected this to be more about the racial injustices thrown her way or how she had to deal with finding her identity and sense of belonging while navigating being "too white to be korean, or too korean to be white". Although I would have been interested in reading the former, I was very surprised at what this book fully encompassed. This book is a love letter to a very strict parent that wanted the best for their child, even if their relationship was destroyed while raising them.

The only mistake I made in opening this book was to choose to read it while visiting my parents during Thanksgiving break; it made me even more sentimental and concerned for their health and well being. While I do not condone some of the rhetoric between Michelle and her mother, Michelle loved her mother and this book made me be more aware of the love I constantly have for my parents no matter what.

Michelle's relationship with her mother was tumultuous while growing up.

They were constantly getting into fights about school, and how she wished her mother was more "motherly"; an example of which she compared to how her mother once yelled at her for climbing a tree and then falling off, then berating her because she scraped herself in the process. Eventually, their relationship was torn apart around the time of Michelle being in high school, where she nearly failed out of school and had admitted to wanting to write music instead of attending college. Her mother let her live on her own to try out the "starving artist" lifestyle while barely out of high school. They even got into a physical fight, where her mother told her she got an abortion so she wouldn't have another child because Michelle was so rotten. Michelle eventually got into a college on the other side of the country, Bryn Mawr, and moved to the east coast. This gave them the breathing room they desperately needed.

Michelle eventually found out that her mother had

found cancerous (or similar enough to cancerous) tumors in her stomach. This changed the dynamic of their relationship immediately. The majority of this book revolves around the love she feels for her mother, and how she did everything she could to help take care of her and make the last years of her life happy and filled with joy and experiences before her death. They went on trips to Korea, cooked together, watched k-dramas and tv shows pirated from the local asian grocery mart. Michelle did the best that she could to give her mother as happy of an ending as possible.

This book is a love letter to her mother, but also a critical analysis of her father.

She acknowledges that her father could have done so much more for her and her mother. He had a rough upbringing due to his fathers active combat PTSD, and had a history of addiction. He also cheated on his wife long before she grew sick, with Michelle discovering on their original family computer ads and correspondences for escorts for hire. Her father had a problem with driving under the influence consistently, and even totaled his car at the end of the book. He unfairly put a lot of his emotional weight onto Michelle with her mothers passing, when they should have been leaning on each other equally.

Between all of this, Michelle does recount her experiences of trying to find a place of belonging, although not as majorly as the content on her parents. She discusses feeling like an outside in different communities because she is too far from the norm for any of them, "too korean or too white". It was heartbreaking to read about how she was very alone in a lot of this until her adult years where she forged meaningful relationships with bandmates and her significant other, Peter. It made me so so happy that Peter was as supportive as he was. He hung in there through all of Michelle taking care of her mother, and their life choices like school and jobs plunging them into long distance. I did long distance with my now fiance for years, it was incredibly difficult but worth it in the end. It seems to have worked out for Michelle and Peter as well, since they got married right before her mothers death so that she could attend the wedding.

The ending of this book had a nice turn around where Michelle talks about her success in later years. Her music has granted her some limelight, and she even starts touring internationally. This book comes to a close following her tour and how the last show is in Korea near some relatives. She is able to go there and it almost feels as if she has some closure, being able to live her dreams creating music and spending time with those she loves.

This book is beautifully written. It will make you ugly cry and put you in a horrible mood the entire time but it is completely worth it. It reminds you of how the relationships with the ones you love most, whether they are blood family or found, are the most important thing even through some of the hardships (obviously not all hardships).

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mekowaletti's review

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

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fernreads42's review

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emotional funny sad medium-paced

4.5

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joanamagalhaes's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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