A review by angeliuque
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

5.0

I don’t know how to phrase the feelings I have for this book. Zauner makes a brilliant account of what it means to be part of the Asian-American diaspora and the struggle to find true connections, identity and relatability within familial relationships, especially within mother-daughter relationships. Juvenile ignorance to an immigrant parents accomplishment, the brainwashing of American society on young and impressionable Asian-American children that pressures them to conform to white lifestyle, yet simultaneously recognizes them as valuable in light of the model minority myth… Just so much emotion on these pages!! I had to put it down because I started crying on the plane which was a bit embarrassing but whatever! Nevertheless this is definitely one of my favorite reads. After I got this book I discovered that Zauner is actually the singer of the Japanese Breakfast??? Which made this experience 10x more enjoyable because I fucking love Japanese Breakfast. Zauner’s profound emotional experience(s) while grappling with death raised the question of physical presence in authenticity and strength of relationships, a question that I have been considering as of recently. Well anyways. I deeply resonated with the feeling of finding comfort in the idea of a foreign “home”; for Zauner, it was Korea, for me, it’s the Philippines. Associating one’s identity with their parent(s)’s home country is an act that is both reaffirming and soothing yet so distorted and unreal. She highlights that once removed from the country, one can begin to feel a falsified sense of self rise within; how does one be a “real” person of their ethnicity? How is that seen within their identity and presentation of self? How is that seen within their familial relationships and their ability to communicate with their relatives overseas? I don’t know if I will ever get over how this book made me feel, but I don’t think I want to.