A review by lunabbly
The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh

3.0

I liked it because it was poignant and made me feel deeply the longing, yearning, and sadness that I have about my own mother. But I didn't think all of it was authentic always. I hesitate to say that it was embellished for the sake of beauty, but there were parts that didn't feel authentic about the emotion, the thoughts. It felt like someone else's thoughts and E.J. Koh wrote them because she doesn't quite know how else to describe the relationship with her mother and grandmother (paternal) and how language shaped so much of it. Or even the relationship her mother had with her maternal grandmother as well.

What we can speak but don't know how to translate...

I also liked that not everything was explained. Her eating disorder, her depression and anxiety -- all were mentioned and it felt like those were authentic narratives she was telling because she could tell them now. She could put it into writing and be honest not just with herself about her mental health, but with an audience, readers and not for the sake of identity politics "Oh I'm a first-generation Asian American with mental health illnesses and issues that cause me to act like x, y, or z," but more like she wanted to tell us because she's comfortable enough to tell us about what she was thinking at the time that she was binging and then purging her food and how it ruined her. There's not much detail about being in recovery, but that also shapes the memoir in many different ways as it gets woven into the story.

I would recommend.