Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

131 reviews

annaonthepage's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Terminal illness, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Death, Fatphobia, Racism, Sexism, and Xenophobia

Minor: Alcoholism and Vomit

_mininbooks_'s review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, and Vomit

Minor: Abortion

wanderlust_romance's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

Food as a connection vehicle to culture and memory is one of my very favorite concepts. And Crying in H Mart explores this with nuance throughout the narrative. Standing in an overly bright grocery aisle surrounded by endless packages of ramyun; assaulted by the scents of banchan in the refrigerated section; struggling to recall her mother's preferred brand of soy or fish sauce among a sea of choices. As Zauner vividly recounts the heart breaking and gut wrenching realities of caring for their terminally ill mother until her death, they provide care through their mother's favored Korean foods. Prior to their mother's illness and the fraught relationship during their teenage and early adult years, Zauner employs food to dive into memories of eating, care, extended family, and travel. If you are also interested in the complexities of "mother wounds," Crying in H Mart reflects on this with multi-faceted emotions. It's complicated and messy and hurtful and loving all at once.

Crying in H Mart also reflects thoughtfully on identity, as Zauner grapples with grief and their Korean-ness as a biracial person. Contemplating broad questions such as: Am I Korean enough? How do I connect with my Korean culture and relatives when the critical person who used to guide me through it is gone? How can I voice these reflections to my surviving parent? Will they even understand? Unmoored in a sea of grief, Zauner turns to cooking Korean dishes as a form of therapy/coping mechanism. Diligently following the recipes and instructions of YouTube star Maangchi, Zauner finds comfort in making the dishes and banchan her mother favored. (I loved this as a fellow Maangchi fan who watches her channel and cooks from her cookbooks <3)

The writing is vivid and lyrical, but at times difficult to follow on audio as it veered into stream of consciousness territory.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Terminal illness, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcoholism, Vomit, Medical content, and Gaslighting

Minor: Body shaming

morganniemarie's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, and Vomit

celticthistle's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Beautiful story about Korean/American woman relationship with mother.  Language barriers & navigating adult work/ life balance 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, and Death of parent

madisonthacker's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.75

Wonderful, touching story of grief, maternal love, third culture kids, and how the food we love connects all of it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Mental illness, Racism, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

Moderate: Vomit and Cultural appropriation

Don’t read if you don’t want to be hungry.

dark_matter_07's review

emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Cancer, Death, Emotional abuse, Terminal illness, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug use, Vomit, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Xenophobia, Car accident, and Abortion

lauraelovesbooks's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Terminal illness, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Vomit

agathajanemaud1908's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

The hype is real. Such a beautiful book. I thought this would be a more challenging book for me due to personal experience with the subject matter (and it was tough in spots, especially the first chapter), but the main problem for me was how hungry this book made me!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Terminal illness, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, and Death of parent

linearev's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

So, I have been reading a lot of Korean and Japanese book lately, a campaign kicked off by the ‘before the coffee gets cold’ series and intensefied by Sayaka Murata. And so when I picked up this book, I fully expected to at least like it. 
However, I was not in the slightest, ready, for the heavy hitting force of the fact, that this is a self biography. A portrait of no the the Korean minority in USA but also of a complicated relationship between a mother and daughter. A generational tradition of complicated love and amazing food. It introduces the reader to the inner workings of someone who is both rather relatable as she is partly American, yet also somewhat astranged (from someone who grew up so differently). And yet, the brilliance of her writing reveals itself by letting us into her Korean side and guiding us through that world. It left me feeling both entertained yet also more knowledgeable each time I finished a chapter. Because somehow she balanced this complicated self portrait with humor which created the sort of entertainment often found in fictional books. 
All to say that this was very good. It sort of reminds me of the new and popular “I’m glad my mom died” which ironically takes the opposite stance of the maternal relation between the main people, yet left me with the same feeling of stepping out of the life of someone compelling and complicated. I liked it enormously and hope to read more from her soon.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, and Death of parent