Crying in H Mart
Ratings500
Average rating4.2
Such a beautiful story, a love letter to her mother and the Korean culture to which the author desperately longs to stay connected. Michelle Zauner is a thoughtful writer who says more less, never trying to overexplain things or soften the emotional edge. She took the grief of losing her mother and made something beautiful out of it, in her own version of Japanese kintsugi.
Powerful. Lively writing. Much truth about loss. I listened, though, and the tone was flat and consistently sad. No humor even when it was in the text. Also, a LoT of meat for a vegetarian to read about. But impressive work and meaningful story.
one day i will read this book and it will absolutely break me.
in the meantime i'm thankful everyday, that day has not come yet.
4.5
Full body sobs. I cried so hard my mom came to check on me and then I just held her and cried and begged her not to die. This one wrecked me.
Un libro muy íntimo, muy personal, lleno de emociones crudas y sinceras, muy triste. Sentí que estaba leyendo un diario de vida, algo que no debía leer. Trata sobre el duelo, pero sobretodo trata sobre la familia.
La relación de Michelle con su mamá era muy complicada, un poco tóxica, pero aun así había mucho amor entre ellas y fue muy doloroso todo el proceso que viven en sus últimos meses.
Me gusta mucho como describe las comidas y la importancia que se les da, son un simbolismo de su relación, su herencia, su identidad y su crecimiento como persona.
Ame mucho también su relación con su tía y como logra reconciliar junto a ella esa parte de su vida que siente que había perdido, se tienen la una a la otra.
Took me a moment to get into, I think the writing improves throughout the book which is compelling. It’s certainly a ride! Halfway through I was broken into a million pieces and by the end, glued back together. I guess that’s grief for you.
3/5 - Not to be that person, but I absolutely do not know why this book is rated so high. While I've gone through the same grief when it comes to losing a mother so tragically, the story was ok. I can say her father was a trash husband, father and caregiver. I do not care how hard his upbringing was.
If anyone doesn't understand how ‘whiteness' has nothing to do with skin colour you can just show them this book. A book about being half Korean written by the whitest woman in the world.
She manages to make everything about her. The most obvious example is her father. You would think she would have some empathy, after all whatever she is feeling for this distant mother figure she barely interacted with must be a thousand times harder for the man whose life was completely defined by her, who lived with her his entire life. But no, instead she tries her best to demean and belittle his experience, culminating in the weirdest scene in the book, where she asks the reader to join her in smugly judging a grieving widower for committing the sin of acting like a tourist in a foreign country.
Then there's the food, just endless irrelevant lists that make the eyes glaze over, like you're at an asian restaurant with a white friend who wants to show off how worldly they are. The best food writers will go out of their way to place food in the context of the place it comes from and the culture it represents, using food as a way to build understanding of another people and another way of thinking. Not this author, for her Korean food only represents a chance to show off how interesting she is. She can't risk actually engaging with the culture beyond a superficial level because then she might have to consider other people worldviews. There's something so quintessentially millennial white woman about it. This is the Eat, Pray, Love of grief.
To be fair, this story would be perfect as an article, it would be heart wrenching and beautiful. As a book all it does is reveal the emptiness underneath.
I will say though, if you lost your mum I'm sure it would hit the feels, its so saccharine it can't not.
And also if you want to know what it's like to be the worst, this is the book for you.
This book will make you incredibly hungry and wistfully sad many, many times over the course of its several sweet and eloquent chapters. Zauner uses a simple and honest directness to unpack her relationship to her mother and cultural identity that makes what could be a mopey navel-gazing exercise into a real pleasure to read.
From the first paragraph I knew I was going to like this book. I saw the essay in social media several weeks ago so I was thrilled when I learned that the author wrote a memoir. Grief is a lonely thing. But I loved how by reading this book, it felt like I wasn't alone. While I'm not Korean, I connected with her experiences, the way her mom used food and acts of services to express her love, how her mom loved shopping and nice things, how important reputation and looks are to her mom, and in general the Asian mom culture that I grew up with. How I loved my mom so much but like the author, a lot of the times failed in showing her.
“It seemed unfair to me that the two of them should have to wait on anyone when their grief was undoubtedly the deepest.”
“For the rest of my life there would be a splinter in my being, stinging from the moment my mother died until it was buried with me.”
“I couldn't fathom joy or pleasure in losing myself in a moment ever again. Maybe because it felt wrong, like a betrayal. If I really loved her, I had no right to feel those things again.”
Her story about losing her mother was written in a way one enjoyed it. Very smooth and soothing. The comparison to Korean culture and what her mum left behind is beautiful.
Apesar de demonstrar ser um tanto mimada e privilegiada sem parecer ter uma noção real disso, a forma crua e visceral da narração me levou às lágrimas mais de uma vez.
This book made me dive too deep and too real in Michelle Zainer's life. I felt and cried for her at the end of the book. As someone who fortunately has not lost anyone to terminal illnesses, my eyes were opened to how emotionally tiring and beyound devastating it could be. Off to call my mum to tell her how much I love her.
3.75 - Lots of really good moments but felt a bit dragged on, another round of editing to trim it down would've done wonders..
