A review by nabaraditi
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

2.0

 Synopsis: It's about the mother-daughter relationship, how she deals with her mother's diagnosis with cancer and death, the daughter's identity as a korean-american and her love for korean food.

As I'm very close to my mother and I was also told to keep tissues nearby, I was prepared to ball my eyes out. I did feel sad for the author in some places, but mostly I was bored. I was mostly bored with all the ingredient list and the cooking. At many places, I felt like its a cookbook.

In my opinion, the relationship the author had with her mother was toxic and abusive. But it's very natural to only remember and reflect upon the good and happy parts and twist the bad experiences to see it as positive or helpful when its your own parent especially on a deathbed. Nevertheless, the author did go to therapy to end it abruptly and found solace in cooking korean dishes. It's obvious that she would as that's one thing that connects her with her mother. But I wish she would go to therapy to deal with the deeper parts of herself and heal herself from how badly she was treated by her mother. 

Nevertheless, I hope I don't receive any hate for my unpopular review. As a future psychologist, I know I'm nobody to tell someone how to grieve. Yet I feel this book was written as it would be cathartic for the author. 

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