plantedjess's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer and Death of parent
alecrigdon's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer
Moderate: Death of parent and Death
abbycole's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Death, Death of parent, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Grief
Moderate: Car accident
Minor: Drug abuse, Abortion, Addiction, and Drug use
aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
I really enjoyed and related to this. I'm also mixed Asian with an Asian immigrant mother so the love/relationship in the book is very similar to my own with my mom. My mom also told my sisters and me a very big secret/life event that shook us and reminded us that we dont know our mom like we think we do like the author's mom telling the author her secret. I also strongly related with the discussion of identity and the struggles of not being seen as enough.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Terminal illness, Grief, Cancer, and Death of parent
Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Racism, and Alcohol
prog51's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Medical content, Grief, and Cancer
aliciae08's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Apparently I am on a memoir kick where grief is a massive theme. I read Crying in H Mart after seeing and hearing so many positive reviews, and I’m glad I did.
It’s about Michelle’s relationship to her mother and what happens when her mother gets sick, but it’s also about her relationship to herself/her cultural identity through food. She asks herself whether she can claim being Korean without her mother validating her existence, and making sense of her existence as a mixed child. She explores this relationship with her food, conjuring up memories of her mother within those recipes and snacks.
This memoir very much read as though someone was writing it for themselves. There are times when the characters aren’t at all likable. As some of the other reviews mentioned, the relationship comes across as sometimes abusive—but saying that, I think the relationship Michelle paints with her mother is very much her own, and she never describes it as being such (she might in the future, but right now she doesn’t). The book was good in that it felt very real. Michelle is not a gracious caregiver—she put so much on wanting her mother to see all the ways she she could adult. Very rarely are caregivers full of the grace the general society demands of them—they’re human and have a range of emotions from resentment to love to adoration to scorn, often in the same moments. Michelle captures this well.
Her relationship with her father is touched upon, and I can see her disappointment. Where she wanted someone to lean on, he was taking up all the space and grief, making decisions that would impact a child in a negative way, no matter the amount of financial support he may have given her in the end.
There were parts that felt mundane, as life sometimes is, but it still struck a cord with me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Cancer
Minor: Abortion, Addiction, and Alcoholism
annamay1021's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Cancer
jennabeck13's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5)
Genre: Memoir
About 240 pages
TW: Cancer and Parental Death
Growing up, Michelle felt she could never do enough to please her strict Korean mother. Michelle never quite fit her mother’s ideal mold as she tested boundaries as a child and then pursued music while working as a waitress in early adulthood. The two butted heads continuously until her mom got sick with cancer. The illness brought them back together and made Michelle embrace the Korean heritage she had pushed away for so long.
This was a beautiful story about love, loss, and embracing your heritage. Zauner did a terrific job of taking readers on the journey with her and the story made me emotional at times. I loved hearing about how she reconnected with her culture and the internal peace it gave her. You can tell Zauner wrote this book to heal and I think she not only accomplished that for herself but others as well.
Favorite Quote: “Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn’t care if it hurt like hell in the meantime.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and Cancer
tbd24's review
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
truly lovely
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Terminal illness, Cancer, and Chronic illness