Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

1338 reviews

lynxpardinus's review

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emotional hopeful reflective sad

4.75


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mrsmishler's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

4.75


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llams's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

what an amazing and honest ode to her mother and korean food. it felt honest and gut wrenchingly real

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aksmith92's review against another edition

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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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kelkelkelkelly's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

5.0


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olpapi's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0


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khorva1996's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0


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jmarob's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad medium-paced

4.25


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mullingford's review against another edition

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reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

Bits of the book were well written and emotional, but it wasn’t really for me. I’m not that interested in food generally speaking. Reading about food does nothing for me and the sadness in the book wasn’t counterbalanced enough. It was quite a bleak read.

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jvickers82's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

4.25


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