Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

From an objectively lense this isn't really a masterpiece or anything. But what this book definitely is, is that it's honest and comforting.

Its vivid and repetitive just like the state of a mind dealing with depression and anxiety.

Just like the author mentions in one of the essays how they hate being told to cheer up and would rather someone listen to them and empathise, reading this book I felt that someone could empathise with my struggles too.

My only regret with the book is that I could have read it slower to take things in more properly but as I connected with the subject matter a lot that proved a struggle.

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hopefulockey's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective relaxing fast-paced

5.0

Great narrator! Very relaxing listen

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dryad3's review against another edition

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slow-paced

1.0

I didn't like this book. It was clear I wouldn't like it after reading the first chapter, but I was curious for a few reasons, so I continued. The first thing that struck me was how the psychiatrist was providing such awful, random advice and not addressing real issues. Next, the transcripts from the writer's therapy sessions showed her to be a hypocritical, petty person. At one point she lashes out at a "friend," intending to end their friendship, because she hadn't liked a recommended book. The therapy conversations never went anywhere, and I was happy to reach the epilogue, which was bizarrely followed by many more chapters! The text after the epilogue, in some ways, didn't seem like it was written by the same person, yet in other moments was quite direct: "I couldn't stand others who seemed to be fully confident in who they were, it made me breathless and nauseous." I'm still surprised that someone took direct transcriptions of their therapy sessions, published them, achieved international success, and it's an accounting of rambling everyday pettiness and bad advice.

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