Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Crying in H Mart

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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kelkelkelkelly's review

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emotional sad slow-paced

5.0

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olpapi's review

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

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nabaraditi's review

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

2.0

Synopsis: It's about the mother-daughter relationship, how she deals with her mother's diagnosis with cancer and death, the daughter's identity as a korean-american and her love for korean food.

As I'm very close to my mother and I was also told to keep tissues nearby, I was prepared to ball my eyes out. I did feel sad for the author in some places, but mostly I was bored. I was mostly bored with all the ingredient list and the cooking. At many places, I felt like its a cookbook.

In my opinion, the relationship the author had with her mother was toxic and abusive. But it's very natural to only remember and reflect upon the good and happy parts and twist the bad experiences to see it as positive or helpful when its your own parent especially on a deathbed. Nevertheless, the author did go to therapy to end it abruptly and found solace in cooking korean dishes. It's obvious that she would as that's one thing that connects her with her mother. But I wish she would go to therapy to deal with the deeper parts of herself and heal herself from how badly she was treated by her mother.

Nevertheless, I hope I don't receive any hate for my unpopular review. As a future psychologist, I know I'm nobody to tell someone how to grieve. Yet I feel this book was written as it would be cathartic for the author.

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