A review by seoltang
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

5.0

going into this, i wasn't quite sure what to expect. i had seen the ratings, knew that this novel has now spent eight weeks as a New York Times bestseller, however i often find nonfiction to fall a little bland. i was wondering beforehand, what could possibly connect me to the author? i haven't lost my parents, i am neither South-Korean nor American, i do not live and breathe music like a songwriter does. but from the beginning i was pulled in by Zauner's gentle prose, found myself crying at her mother's death and grew thankful for the frank depiction of a, at times, catastrophic mother-daughter relationship. Zauner has studied Creative Writing and although i got the impression that she never intended to make a career out of it this novel seems so naturally composed as if every single word sits at its right place, neither too much nor not enough. i related to Zauner's realization that with her mother's death the biggest part of her South-Korean identity was seemingly lost and that is a thought i keep at the very back of my mind for now, and the struggle to parse love out of another culture that makes love appear like a violent action. midway through i also looked up the author's band, Japanese Breakfast, and discovered some songs i really like. the first album is solely focused on her grief for her mother's death. all this to say that this novel touched something in me, something isolating yet so universal.