Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

89 reviews

samarshall's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Car accident, Medical content, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, Grief, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Alcohol, Vomit, Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, and Addiction

Minor: Infidelity

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

katyfortner's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.25

I think I wasn’t in the right mind frame to read this book right now. While I enjoyed it and it didn’t make me reflect on my life and my friend’s hardships, it was really sad. Also, I understand forgiving your mother because she is no longer here but I don’t think parental abuse should be tolerated or bypassed because it was the way she loved her child. She shouldn’t have hit her child no matter the cultural norms.
The writing is very good and really pulled at your heart strings. The author is very strong to have gone through all of this and still coming out on top of life.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Cancer, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Medical content, Child abuse, Grief, Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, and Death

Minor: Abortion

gagereadsstuff's review against another edition

reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Grief and Car accident

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Excrement, Mental illness, and Vomit

rotatinglibrary's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Rape, Excrement, Drug use, Abortion, Vomit, and Drug abuse

bookishkale's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast weaves her heartbreaking tale of the loss of her mother into formation. She had me captured by her story, of her fears and her hopes, her losses and her gains, her failures and her successes on the backdrop of something so awful. She is a brilliant writer, doing her best to find some ease in her pain and I am blown away. Her finding her heritage through food is heartwarming. I just want to thank her for putting her story into words like this, I cannot imagine how hard it must have been. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Cancer, Medical content, Mental illness, Grief, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Blood, Chronic illness, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Mental illness

Minor: Abortion, Racism, and Bullying

sahcasm's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Cancer, and Death

Moderate: Car accident, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Abortion, Alcoholism, and Vomit

emilysbookishlife's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse and Grief

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

hydeandseek's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Cancer, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, and Grief

kelly_e's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

Title: Crying in H Mart
Author: Michelle Zauner
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 3.0
Pub Date: April 21, 2021

T H R E E • W O R D S

Raw • Illuminating • Surface-level

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Crying in H Mart is a memoir about growing up, caregiving, death, grief and identity from Michelle Zauner.

She details growing up as one of the few Korean American kids at her school; of struggling with her mother's high expectations; of time spent with her mother's family in Seoul; of caring for her mother through the end of life; of death and grief; and of reconnecting with her identity.

💭 T H O U G H T S

Sometimes the hype can have an adverse effect on my reading experience, and that was certainly the case with Crying in H Mart. I went in expecting a life-alternating and moving memoir dealing with death and grief, yet I didn't get the emotional depth I'd anticipated.

That's not to say this wasn't an incredibly personal and healing journey for the author, which I imagine it was. It felt like a story which needed to be written, yet not necessarily read. The writing was accessible, and Michelle details an intimate look into the daily routine of caregiving for someone at the end of life. It's always interesting to read about how people discover their culture, especially in grief. And food does play a role throughout, however, I'd expected there to be more of how food is a source of human connection through the good and the bad. I just wanted more depth and emotion.

Crying in H Mart is a beautiful exploration of mother/daughter relationships and an open dialogue on dying and grief, it just wasn't the all encompassing sensory experience I'd been wanting or needing.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• readers looking for a mother/daughter memoir
• grievers

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people, those who had felt pain and those who had yet to."

"Food was an unspoken language between us, had come to symbolize our return to each other, our bonding, our common ground." 

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Vomit, Medical trauma, Addiction, Drug use, Racism, Chronic illness, Alcohol, Drug abuse, and Alcoholism

Minor: Abortion, Car accident, Infidelity, and Suicidal thoughts