Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

73 reviews

startjpw23's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

The memoir is centered around the loss of Michelle Zauner's mother. Michelle writes about her youth, her teen years, and her early adult years. She talks about the illness that led to her mother's passing and how she coped with the passing. The relationship between Michelle and her mother (and her father) was tempestuous. The book goes forward and backwards in time. A good part of the books talks about food. Food was the primary way her mother showed her love. And, after her mother died, becoming good at preparing some of the dishes her mother made was a primary way Michelle tried to keep the memory of her mother alive and pay tribute to her. As my food tastes are not very adventurous, and I am not a good cook, I sometimes struggled getting through the lengthy descriptions of meals and food preparation. The passages made perfect sense in the context of the book. The end of the book talked about the initial success of Michelle's band Japanese Breakfast. I recommend the book to anyone who wants to read a memoir about grief and the way one person attempted to handle the loss. Just be aware that there is a lot of detailed discussion about food.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse

kmae314's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

3.5 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness and Grief

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

seregelda's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

CW: cancer, child abuse, assault, r*pe mention

I'm not familiar with the author's music, so that didn't influence me at all. It was sad and makes me want to cherish my mom, a cancer survivor, all the more! Wish I could relate to all the food stories, but I still have yet to try kimchi (my sister thinks it will be too spicy for me).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child abuse, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Infidelity, Terminal illness, and Medical content

Minor: Rape

franksfiction's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

 

 * This is my opinion; I encourage readers to read anything they want. * 

I truly don’t know how to rate this book. It’s a weird feeling, anyway, writing a review on someone writing about their own life. I’ve heard many good things about “Crying in H Mart” that I wanted to read myself. 

I enjoyed the writing style. I saw some reviewers say it wasn’t written well, but I thought the personalness and vulnerability Zauner’s writing has to offer were great. If you have lost your mother, this will be a challenging and potentially triggering book to read. The biggest issue I have with rating this book is Michelle’s mother. In my opinion, she’s awful and downright abusive. Any of my Korean friends I’ve made, though, their mothers have treated their children similarly (but not to the point that Michelle’s mother gets to). 

I read some reviews saying that this book felt more like a therapy exercise for Zauner, a cathartic experience not meant for millions of people to read, and I agree. I also don’t know what to say about the course the book decides to take. I don’t know what it is, but it feels wrong to rate this book, and I hope Michelle Zauner is doing amazing. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, and Death of parent

leahroyelle's review against another edition

medium-paced

3.0

It felt like the author wrote this book too soon. Reading it, it seemed pretty clear that she still has a lot of processing to do. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Child abuse

laura227_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child abuse, Grief, and Death of parent

limaol's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Minor: Child abuse

eleek0609's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Death of parent

Moderate: Child abuse and Emotional abuse

Minor: Abortion

theseniorswiftie's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cancer, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Abortion, and Death of parent

aleyajo's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

She talks about food a lot and it all sounded so delicious and made me soooo hungry. Eloquently balanced the complicated relationship with her mother with the love they had for each other. Beautifully written. Reminded me of leg but more poetic. A lovely memorial of her mother, their relationship, and their culture.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Child abuse, Mental illness, Racism, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Car accident