I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki: A Memoir

by Baek Sehee

Other authorsAnton Hur (Translator)

Hardcover, 2022

Genres

Description

Biography & Autobiography. Psychology. Self-Improvement. Nonfiction. HTML:National Indie Bestseller World Literature Today Notable Translation of the Year Salon Favorite Book of the Year The South Korean runaway bestseller, an intimate therapy memoir translated by International Booker Prize shortlisted Anton Hur.PSYCHIATRIST: So how can I help you? ME: I don't know, I'm �?? what's the word �?? depressed? Do I have to go into detail? Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her - what to call it? - depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgmental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends, performing the calmness her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can't be normal. But if she's so hopeless, why can she always summon a desire for her favorite street food: the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like? Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a twelve-week period, and expanding on each session with her own reflective micro-essays, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions, and harmful behaviors that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness. It will appeal to anyone who has ever felt alone or unjustified in their everyday de… (more)

Publication

Bloomsbury Publishing (2022), Edition: Unabridged, 208 pages

User reviews

LibraryThing member tuusannuuska

One woman's account of going to therapy to get help for the low grade depression she's lived with for a large part of her life. Told in part in transcripts of the therapy sessions, in part in short texts exploring the topics covered in the sessions.

Some of this was very relatable, some not at all.

In the end there was nothing all that revelatory about this book, but it wan't bad either. I guess I just didn't end up getting all that much out of it.

One slightly frustrating thing about this was the final sentence of the book, which pretty much shows that the author still hangs on to the one way of thinking that the therapy sessions came back to time and time again, which is thinking in black and white.

Show Less

3 more

LibraryThing member bookwyrmm

A quick read, and while I understand the author's intent, it seemed too simple and almost meaningless.

LibraryThing member bobbieharv

Very disappointing. Both the therapist and the author seem overly concerned about what other people think of them (as in the therapist's comments about worrying that others he/she wasn't a good therapist (which is exactly what I thought)). The author didn't change; her thoughts and the therapist's

advice are all very shallow.

Show Less

LibraryThing member greeniezona

This was a bit of a mixed bag for me. First of all, the book didn't seem to match the mood of the title, and there was no tteokbokki appearing in this picture. I did find many moments I enjoyed/appreciated in the first half of the book, which is basically an edited version of direct transcripts of

the author's first year in therapy. In found the vulnerability and transparency refreshing the constant reminders that all of us are struggling, all of the time, even if your particular struggles do not match those here. I admire what the author intended to do with this book: to stand up and be open about these stigmatized issues (especially in Korea, I think), so that others could se that it wasn't only them.

The second half of the book did not work for me, however. A series of very short essays that are reflections on life following therapy. Each essay is so short and so restricted to a single topic, I found myself skimming them just to finish the book. I wish they had been either interspersed with the therapy notes or combined into longer, more connected essays. Their in betweenness didn't do anything for me.

Show Less

Fewer