A review by kaylaswhitmore
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I may just be biased, since I am also a Korean-American woman who grew up in Eugene, Oregon…but this memoir is certainly a gift to all who read it, and especially children of Asian immigrants. Words can’t quite describe the bizarre, surreal experience I had reading Michelle’s recollections. In between reeling emotionally from the similarities between her mother and my own, I would find myself blinking as familiar staples of my Eugene hometown popped up on every other page. Though my childhood and relationship to my mother is still quite different from Michelle’s, there were still so many things that struck me as familiar—like a funhouse mirror. Her use of emotion to paint such vivid pictures of the intangible truly drew me in and held me from the very first chapter. Someday, when the ache of her loss and the fear of losing my own mother fades, I will return to this book and reread it anew. For now, I’ll sit here in silence for a bit and cry lol.
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