Take a photo of a barcode or cover
crybabybea 's review for:
Crying in H Mart
by Michelle Zauner
emotional
reflective
sad
Can't quite place why I didn't love this very much. Trust me I cried, and there were plenty of moments of beautiful poetic reflection and raw, deep emotion. But at the same time I felt there was another half of the book that was just lacking something. I sometimes felt like the author relied on the theme of food to the point that it got in her way, and some things lacked deeper introspection that I was expecting.
There actually seemed to be a lack of information about her mother, which isn't a bad thing but I felt the vagueness didn't work for me. She explains a few childhood experiences here and there, but doesn't analyze her mother's life as much as she did her father, which struck me as weird since this is of course about her mother's death. There were moments where Michelle experienced some pretty severe abuse at the hands of her mother, and seems to look back on her mother's version of love with extreme rose-colored glasses (stuff like saying nobody would ever love her as much as her mother loved her, despite her mother showing her love in some pretty toxic ways). It sort of left a weird feeling as I read, and made it seem like the author didn't do as much introspection as I expect out of a memoir.
Of course, it's okay that this doesn't go into the depths of what it means to be Asian-American, nor am I entitled to a deep psychoanalysis of the author's relationship to her mother, but I think I expected a bit more because of its centrality around food and culture.
In reality this book is a deep dive into the author's personal experience with grief and the complicated relationship with her mother, and for what it's worth that bit of the book is done extremely well. The author is able to capture moments of emotion in such unique ways, zeroing in on everyday interactions that might pass others by. She finds connection to her mother in the minutiae of life after her passing, coming to appreciate the ways her mother quietly loved her. It really was a beautiful depiction of the complexity of grief and I felt like I experienced the stages alongside Michelle.
I agree with other reviewers that this felt like an important book for Michelle to write, but not one I absolutely loved reading.
I don't know if I could recommend this to someone actively grieving. The depictions of death and medical content are extremely graphic, and the author takes you through a detailed experience of her mother's loss of life, the funeral, and the grief afterward. I would be super careful picking this up if you are still mourning/are easily triggered by cancer/chemo and other medical content.
There actually seemed to be a lack of information about her mother, which isn't a bad thing but I felt the vagueness didn't work for me. She explains a few childhood experiences here and there, but doesn't analyze her mother's life as much as she did her father, which struck me as weird since this is of course about her mother's death. There were moments where Michelle experienced some pretty severe abuse at the hands of her mother, and seems to look back on her mother's version of love with extreme rose-colored glasses (stuff like saying nobody would ever love her as much as her mother loved her, despite her mother showing her love in some pretty toxic ways). It sort of left a weird feeling as I read, and made it seem like the author didn't do as much introspection as I expect out of a memoir.
Of course, it's okay that this doesn't go into the depths of what it means to be Asian-American, nor am I entitled to a deep psychoanalysis of the author's relationship to her mother, but I think I expected a bit more because of its centrality around food and culture.
In reality this book is a deep dive into the author's personal experience with grief and the complicated relationship with her mother, and for what it's worth that bit of the book is done extremely well. The author is able to capture moments of emotion in such unique ways, zeroing in on everyday interactions that might pass others by. She finds connection to her mother in the minutiae of life after her passing, coming to appreciate the ways her mother quietly loved her. It really was a beautiful depiction of the complexity of grief and I felt like I experienced the stages alongside Michelle.
I agree with other reviewers that this felt like an important book for Michelle to write, but not one I absolutely loved reading.
I don't know if I could recommend this to someone actively grieving. The depictions of death and medical content are extremely graphic, and the author takes you through a detailed experience of her mother's loss of life, the funeral, and the grief afterward. I would be super careful picking this up if you are still mourning/are easily triggered by cancer/chemo and other medical content.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Death, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent
Moderate: Racism, Vomit
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Car accident