A review by naanicam
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

4.0

This book has made me reflect on several topics.
First of all, the fact of being a multicultural person, that your roots come from two different countries, and how that makes you feel, feel that you have to "decide" on which side you feel more, forging you as a person.
Also, taking your personal circle for granted. Your friends, your family, time goes by and you think they will always be there, but time goes by very fast, and maybe when you want to go back, you can't.
The mother-daughter relationship, how it changes.
The mother-daughter relationship and how it changes during the development of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, is very well reflected in the book.
The theme of food, how food is their way of showing love, time, affection, etc. In addition, we can learn more about Asian culture and customs through food.
This book makes us realize how instantaneous life, people, memories are, having to always make the most of them. The book also demonstrates grief, the pain of loss and mourning, sadness and melancholy.

My favorite phrases throughout the book have been the following:

* “Life is unfair, and sometimes it helps to irrationally blame someone for it”

* “ Save ten percent of yourself. What she meant was that, no matter How much you thought you loved someone, or tought they loved you, you never gave all of yourself “

* “ 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”

* “ Unni is how Korean women refer to their older sisters and close women friends who are older. It translates to big sister “

* “ That food was an unspoken language between us, that it had come to symbolize our return to each other, our bonding, our common ground”

* “ Like, you can’t really love someone of you have too much pride, or work your way up to a good job if you feel that everything is beneath you”

* “ I loved that she believed in reincarnation, the idea that after all this she could start anew “

* “ I talked about how love was an action, an instinct, a response roused by unplanned moments and small gestures, an inconvenience in someone else’s favor”

* “It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people, those who had felt pain and those who had yet to”

* “ How cylcical and bittersweet for a child to retrace the image of their mother. For a subject to turn back to document their archivist “