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A review by safsaf118
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
5.0
I was not prepared for this. Genuinely hung on to every word. A perfect reflection on grief, regret, family and motherhood. Such a touching story, I was crying on the plane as I read this. A beautiful capture of the sacrifices parents make and the subtle ways immigrant parents show their love. It was also so interesting to trace the author's life as she grew up and the ebbing and flowing of her relationship with her family, especially her mother. I also really appreciated her reflections on being half-white and half-Korean and the struggle of fitting in and wanting to be more in touch with her Korean culture as a way to know her mother more.
"I remember the snacks Mom told me she ate when she was a kid and how I tried to imagine her at my age. I wanted to like all the things she did, to embody her completely."
"Sometimes my grief feels as though I’ve been left alone in a room with no doors. Every time I remember that my mother is dead, it feels like I’m colliding into a wall that won’t give. There’s no escape, just a hard wall that I keep ramming into over and over, a reminder of the immutable reality that I will never see her again."
"I imagined myself years from that moment, confronted by the same emotions. For the rest of my life there would be a splinter in my being, stinging from the moment my mother died until it was buried with me."
"That night, lying beside her, I remembered how when I was a child I would slip my cold feet between my mother’s thighs to warm them. How she’d shiver and whisper that she would always suffer to bring me comfort, that that was how you knew someone really loved you."
AND THIS PART KILLED ME:
"The cowboy boots arrived in one of these packages after my parents had vacationed in Mexico. When I slipped them on I discovered they’d already been broken in. My mother had worn them around the house for a week, smoothing the hard edges in two pairs of socks for an hour every day, molding the flat sole with the bottom of her feet, wearing in the stiffness, breaking the tough leather to spare me all discomfort."
"I remember the snacks Mom told me she ate when she was a kid and how I tried to imagine her at my age. I wanted to like all the things she did, to embody her completely."
"Sometimes my grief feels as though I’ve been left alone in a room with no doors. Every time I remember that my mother is dead, it feels like I’m colliding into a wall that won’t give. There’s no escape, just a hard wall that I keep ramming into over and over, a reminder of the immutable reality that I will never see her again."
"I imagined myself years from that moment, confronted by the same emotions. For the rest of my life there would be a splinter in my being, stinging from the moment my mother died until it was buried with me."
"That night, lying beside her, I remembered how when I was a child I would slip my cold feet between my mother’s thighs to warm them. How she’d shiver and whisper that she would always suffer to bring me comfort, that that was how you knew someone really loved you."
AND THIS PART KILLED ME:
"The cowboy boots arrived in one of these packages after my parents had vacationed in Mexico. When I slipped them on I discovered they’d already been broken in. My mother had worn them around the house for a week, smoothing the hard edges in two pairs of socks for an hour every day, molding the flat sole with the bottom of her feet, wearing in the stiffness, breaking the tough leather to spare me all discomfort."