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A review by casskrug
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
5.0
i knew what i was getting myself into with this reread and i’m still devastated by it yet again. i lost track of how many times i cried while reading - whether it was a description of her mother’s cancer treatment, a beautiful line about the support michelle received from her husband, or a description of her musical dreams coming true, i spent a lot of my reading time with tears in my eyes.
there’s something so visceral about the way she describes her grief and the mutual need between a child and their mother. set against a backdrop of teen angst and fights, the grief hits even harder, especially considering that michelle and her mother were on the path to repairing their relationship when her mother’s cancer struck. michelle captures the bewilderment and the strange role-reversal that i can only imagine a daughter taking care of and then losing her mother feels. there’s this innocent and childlike mindset of “if i just do this, she’ll get better; if i just do that, she’ll get better” that drives michelle to connect with her mother’s korean heritage.
i really loved how michelle incorporated so much food writing into the book. on top of making my heart break, the book also made me incredibly hungry. you can tell how important korean cuisine was in her relationship with her mother. it was so heartwarming to hear about how she took it upon herself to learn how to make the dishes that were so important to her mother in order to keep her legacy alive.
similarly to my experience with the year of magical thinking by joan didion, i flew through my first read of crying in h mart but i found that i had to pace myself during my reread. i felt the pain and distress so deeply that i needed to spread out my reading experience a bit more (i say even though i read the second half of the book in one evening). the raw tone was so evocative and propulsive that it made it difficult to put the book down.
there’s a reason why almost all of my goodreads friends that have read this book rated it 5 stars. as cheesy as it sounds, it’s a stunning reminder that tomorrow is never promised, and you should tell the people you love that you love them, because you never know what will happen. i don’t know if i’ve gotten more sensitive over the years but i am even more affected by this book now, and i thought the impact it had during my first read would be hard to beat. this reread has cemented crying in h mart as one of my all-time favorite books.
“If there was a god, it seemed my mother must have had her foot on his neck, demanding good things come my way. That if we had to be ripped apart right at our turning point, just when things were really starting to get good, the least god could do was make a few of her daughter's pipe dreams come true.”
2021 review: favorite book of 2021. made me cry, made me hungry, and i haven’t stopped thinking about it since i read it in record time
there’s something so visceral about the way she describes her grief and the mutual need between a child and their mother. set against a backdrop of teen angst and fights, the grief hits even harder, especially considering that michelle and her mother were on the path to repairing their relationship when her mother’s cancer struck. michelle captures the bewilderment and the strange role-reversal that i can only imagine a daughter taking care of and then losing her mother feels. there’s this innocent and childlike mindset of “if i just do this, she’ll get better; if i just do that, she’ll get better” that drives michelle to connect with her mother’s korean heritage.
i really loved how michelle incorporated so much food writing into the book. on top of making my heart break, the book also made me incredibly hungry. you can tell how important korean cuisine was in her relationship with her mother. it was so heartwarming to hear about how she took it upon herself to learn how to make the dishes that were so important to her mother in order to keep her legacy alive.
similarly to my experience with the year of magical thinking by joan didion, i flew through my first read of crying in h mart but i found that i had to pace myself during my reread. i felt the pain and distress so deeply that i needed to spread out my reading experience a bit more (i say even though i read the second half of the book in one evening). the raw tone was so evocative and propulsive that it made it difficult to put the book down.
there’s a reason why almost all of my goodreads friends that have read this book rated it 5 stars. as cheesy as it sounds, it’s a stunning reminder that tomorrow is never promised, and you should tell the people you love that you love them, because you never know what will happen. i don’t know if i’ve gotten more sensitive over the years but i am even more affected by this book now, and i thought the impact it had during my first read would be hard to beat. this reread has cemented crying in h mart as one of my all-time favorite books.
“If there was a god, it seemed my mother must have had her foot on his neck, demanding good things come my way. That if we had to be ripped apart right at our turning point, just when things were really starting to get good, the least god could do was make a few of her daughter's pipe dreams come true.”
2021 review: favorite book of 2021. made me cry, made me hungry, and i haven’t stopped thinking about it since i read it in record time