eatingbrains's review against another edition
2.5
It was alright. I teared up a few times. The descriptions of food were verbose and evocative, sometimes excessively so. I love Maangchi.
This is a story of grief and mourning, of finding your identity and how it changes as you grow, relationships and connections.
Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Alcohol, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Death, Excrement, and Fatphobia
Minor: Abortion, Body shaming, Drug use, Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Car accident, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Eating disorder, Religious bigotry, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, and Sexism
mirandyli's review
5.0
Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Excrement, Abortion, Drug use, Medical content, Misogyny, Cancer, Colonisation, Death, Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, Addiction, Car accident, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Grief, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Infidelity, and Racism
lindsaymcneely's review
4.0
Graphic: Cancer, Terminal illness, and Death of parent
Minor: Infidelity, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Body shaming
authorbrittanibee's review
However, I still find myself struggling to give a star rating for her memoir. I believe this is primarily because her story shines a light directly onto my own life and the recent struggles I have found myself facing in regards to the parent/ child dynamic and the issues that stem from generational trauma.
While reading this memoir, I found (and highlighted) many instances where the dynamics between Michelle and her mother (and sometimes her father) felt toxic or uncomfortable. Of course, I must note that I read this story through a very specific lens having recently decided to cut ties with both of my parents. But--from my outside perspective--the dynamics within this family did not seem the most healthy and caused me a mixture of frustration and heartbreak when Michelle turned the blame onto herself.
I literally had to close this book for a few weeks as it became too much for me to read. The enmeshed relationship between mother and daughter felt too similar to my own, which left me emotionally drained.
In the end, my takeaway from this book is that the parent/ child relationship is one of the most complex relationships we will ever experience in our lives and everyone views it differently, oftentimes vastly. We can never truly know or understand the feelings that run deep within the relationships between families outside of our own, nor can we (or should we) judge any person's choice to stay within those dynamics or leave them entirely. And to add in an additional layer of becoming a parental caretaker complicates matters even more, creating a large, swirling vortex of feelings that may never become untangled.
I thoroughly enjoyed Michelle's thoughtful and emotional portrayal of her complex relationship with her mother and how they grew closer together during a time of great crisis, but also how the early loss of her mother left a mixture of grief and questions and an unsteady path forward.
Graphic: Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Grief, Medical content, Abortion, Death of parent, and Body shaming
autiedragon's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Racism, Body shaming, Medical trauma, Medical content, Grief, Cancer, and Eating disorder
autumnsykes1's review
4.5
Moderate: Death, Grief, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Cancer, and Medical content
Minor: Abortion, Alcoholism, and Body shaming
emilyrowanstudio's review against another edition
3.75
What I loved - I have potentially never read a mother/daughter relationship told with as much nuance and tenderness as Zauner tells with hers. The complexities, the devotion, the lessons learned too late - be warned, her Mother's slow decline, death and the immediate aftermath is told in STARK detail. I would advise against reading this if a close family member of yours, especially a Mother figure, has recently passed.
Zauner's relationship with identity, her strained relationship with her American Father, and struggle to communicate in her mother tongue with her Korean family is not one I can relate to, but I empathised with her sense of struggling to belong. After reading Zauner's story, I feel I am closer to understanding the displacement and unique position that come with mixed heritage than after any other account i've heard before.
What I disliked - please note, a lot of this comes down to personal taste rather than poor writing or storytelling, but for my tastes, a good quarter to a third could have been cut from the food descriptions of the book. Personally, I don't like a lot of description in my books, preferring dialogue, emotions, and the things unsaid to set the scene in my preferred style of storytelling. However, if you enjoy detailed descriptions of food and cultural settings, you will love this. Although I understood Zauner's relationship with food is deeply tied up in her relationship with her Mother and finding her way through the grief that came from losing her, and that's why it was included, for me there was still too much of it. I also don't know enough (anything) about Korean food to really enjoy much of this book for what it is - to my detriment! If you're a lover of Korean food you will surely find Zauner's descriptions mouth-watering.
Overall i'm definitely glad I read it, I just wish it had been over quicker.
Graphic: Cancer, Death of parent, Grief, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Abortion, Body shaming, and Mental illness
magpie_'s review
5.0
Graphic: Body shaming, Death of parent, Medical content, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Vomit, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug use, Drug abuse, Death, and Chronic illness
Minor: Toxic relationship, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, and Abortion
greenwillow77's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Medical content, Grief, Cancer, Terminal illness, and Death of parent
Moderate: Body shaming
Minor: Excrement
kimmykelly's review
4.0
Moderate: Grief, Alcohol, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Cancer, Death of parent, Terminal illness, and Death