I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

tteokbokki is my depression hyperfixation and i've never seen a more relateable book title

I'm either going to love this or I am going to be so frustrated with this book by the time I am done with this book.

I just can't review this one basically it is about Baek Se-hee mental health but she can't immediately open to accept LGBTQ+ people is not done.

No sé qué esperaba de este libro la verdad, me emboló demasiado. Rescato las reflexiones del epílogo.

Good reading flow

Very different from what I expected, but still it was interesting reading about the author's thoughts and feelings.

P.S. Found a lot of great quotes that will remember in my everyday life.

I was impressed and awed by Baek's honesty. How incredibly vulnerable she allowed herself to be and I'm grateful for it.

I have mixed feelings about this book while it was extremely deep and personal part of the author, but I still felt it lacked more depth, I understand this is just part of her transcripts of her sesions with her phsychiatric but somehow I find the whole thing extremely boring, while they were snips of moments were I could relate to her, there were other where I was just staring into nothing and thinking huh this is not contributing anything meaningful into my life. but I think this was only a me problem because of the format of the book.

However, I have to give her credit for not shying away from tackling difficult subjects, such as mental health and societal expectations from South Koreans, with honesty and vulnerability. Yet, even in the darkest moments, there is a thread of hope and resilience that runs through her writing.

Dnf at 38%
I need to stop reading about depression while I'm depressed it's nOT helping

I enjoyed the concept of the book for the most part I would say for the last hour of my audio idk how I felt bc it was like the author was rambling and repeating things we already heart for the other 80% of the book nonetheless still a good read

I think this was a really courageous thing to publish but the book itself is not organized very well - it's transcripts of therapy sessions and some seemingly unrelated short essays - and the psychiatrist honestly didn't seem very helpful aside from prescribing medications.

A very light-hearted take at a topic regarding sometimes too seriously in society today.

Following the POV of a clearly imperfect woman let's us normalise that no one is perfect and being normal isn't a goal to strive for - learn to accept yourself for who you are. There is only so much you can do to try and change to fit societal norms.

Unfortunately, this book did not live up to the hype it was receiving on TikTok. I remember scrolling on TikTok one day and saw it as one of the “must read” books for a woman in her 20s. Of course, this was a selling point and immediately intrigued me as I hoped the theme of the book would surround the author's thoughts more in depth.

In my opinion, the book lacked depth in a way that everything was very surface level in terms of the conversation between the author and the therapist. I also felt that the author was judgmental at certain points (or maybe I didn't appreciate the advice/replies that the therapist gave). I wish there were instances where the author explained in more detail about how she navigated through everything in a way that would make it a “must read” for women in their 20s.

2 stars • meh but an interesting concept

I think this could have been an interesting memoir, but I didn't enjoy this one. Most of this book is just transcripts of the author's therapy sessions.

It's an interesting way of telling's one life, but I think it would have benefitted with more regular memoir writing. I don't feel like I know much about the author, like her history, or family. It centered mostly on their feelings. The novel also tries to be part-memoir, and part-self help, and I don't think this combo works.

I'm glad that the author, Baek Se-hee, got the proper treatment for her persistent depression and I thoroughly enjoyed reading her memoir about recovering from her mental illness with her psychiatrist. I'm glad she had a positive experience getting mental health treatment in the span of 12 weeks, and now I want to eat tteokbokki for dinner.

conflicted

2.5

(Will review soon)

I didn't pick this book up expecting some miracle fix for depression or even some great insight, but more a curiosity about another's experience and how they dealt with it. That's probably a good thing, since I don't really think it is very good at supplying any good advice actually. I've never been in therapy myself, so I can't compare, but I thought the therapist was a bit useless in this all. For simply being a sounding board for the author, sure they were ok, but actually helping her to sort through things...meh, not so much. Now what I did like about the book was more hearing another's unfiltered thoughts about their depression, insecurities and struggles. Seeing Baek Sehee examine herself more closely and see what habits or traits or past experiences contribute to her persistent depressive disorder felt cathartic to me. Although we don't share everything, there were a lot of things she described that resonated with me and had me saying: ‘yes exactly!' Sometimes just knowing another soul struggles with these same things is a comfort. I found myself also thinking about my own self in light of the subjects she brings up and examining my own reason for feeling a certain way, and I don't think that's a bad thing. How can we improve if we never look internally and sometimes dissect what's there? Is this a great book? No I wouldn't say it really is all that helpful or even insightful, however, if you're in a space where you can hear another's story and use that to look at yourself and pull things out on your own that may be helpful or even just comforting, then it's a decent, light read.

Maybe it just plays better in Korea with its BTS recommendation and possibly different norms around therapy. Here in the West being able to take part in therapy is more a point of class distinction, while social media has normalized the open and frank discussion around mental illness to the point people are falsely laying claim to neurodivergent traits for a strange sense of clout. Still there is the thrill of eavesdropping on a therapist / client conversation and, at least for me, repeated feelings of recognition. But then again the self-loathing, tendency to extremes, body dysmorphia, insecurity, and general melancholic malaise discussed here — well isn't that just the current resting state of just about everyone in our social media saturated world?

Maybe it can provide some sense of relief to those suffering from mild depression, or at least a sense of being seen. That is huge and I don't want to dismiss the value others may find. Maybe I'm oblivious, I'm the dog, drinking coffee, being engulfed in flames exclaiming “This is fine” but the book just didn't work for me.

It felt like reading someone's diary. Mostly I liked the parts where she talked with psychiatrist.

2⁵

la verdad que

I don't know what I expected going into this book but the first few pages completely flooring me wasn't it. It initially hit me hard because there was so much about the author's struggles I felt I could relate to, but that feeling slowly reduced as the book went on. While there were some aspects of her personality that didn't make sense to me, I really appreciated the discussions about Persistent Depressive Disorder, the reasons for binge eating, the anxieties over little things, the pressure of expectations and more. I've never gone to a therapist despite my issues with depression, so I did take heed of some of the things the therapist here was saying because I felt had come to some of those realizations myself, and there were some small changes I could try to make in my thinking. Overall, this was a short but surprisingly insightful book, which may not have all the answers, but sometimes even being seen and realizing we are not alone in the world can be powerful in it's own way.