Call number
BIO ZAU
Collections
Publication
Vintage (2023), Edition: Reprint, 256 pages
Description
"From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean-American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity. In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence (; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member brangwinn
Growing up in Eugene Oregon with a Caucasian father and a Korean mother, it took the death of her mother from cancer for the author to understand life from her mother’s perspective. And as in many cultures, its food that brings us the most memories. In this case, it was going to the Korean
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grocery store, H Mart that brings fresh grief as Michelle looks over the shelves of food with which her mother cooked. It’s a moving and honest look at how children’s’ relationship with parents change. The beginning chapter alone makes this one of the outstanding memoirs of 2021. Show Less
LibraryThing member Daumari
I do and I don't want to recommend this to my own mother, partly because we've butt heads in the past so I think she'd recognize some of the similar, "I'm showing my love for you by wanting you to do better" things, but also she's got a sense of her mortality and I don't think she'd take kindly to
Michelle Zauner writes a bluntly emotional memoir, on how it feels when the person you thought you'd have for decades more suddenly starts to fade, and the process of working through that grief even while the person is still alive. Her hometown of Eugene is not far from where I am (I actually go on a weekly basis), so that helped with visualizing some of the places described for where teenage!Michelle went to see shows, or the drive up Spencer's Butte to the family home, or her nightmares about being a car driving off the Ferry Street Bridge. A lot of her bond with her mom is over food, and that's a universal love that can lead to, well, crying in H Mart. Or Sunshine Market, as it were.
Listen to Psychopomp for the final third!
Reread 2022 for book club~
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me sending her a memoir about when a daughter's mother is dying. Michelle Zauner writes a bluntly emotional memoir, on how it feels when the person you thought you'd have for decades more suddenly starts to fade, and the process of working through that grief even while the person is still alive. Her hometown of Eugene is not far from where I am (I actually go on a weekly basis), so that helped with visualizing some of the places described for where teenage!Michelle went to see shows, or the drive up Spencer's Butte to the family home, or her nightmares about being a car driving off the Ferry Street Bridge. A lot of her bond with her mom is over food, and that's a universal love that can lead to, well, crying in H Mart. Or Sunshine Market, as it were.
Listen to Psychopomp for the final third!
Reread 2022 for book club~
Show Less
LibraryThing member bibliovermis
I laughed, I cried, and I got very, very hungry.
LibraryThing member Othemts
Michelle Zauner, a musician who records under the name Japanese Breakfast, writes this memoir of her life growing up mixed race in Oregon and her tempestuous relationship with her mother. Zauner's mother was an immigrant from South Korea while her father was a white American. She discusses how she
The core of the book relates to her mother's cancer diagnosis, slow decline, and death. Zauner reflects on how this period drew her closer to her mother and see her in a different way. Food is central to the narrative as Zauner finds learning how to cook traditional Korean recipes as a way to connect to her Korean identity. It's a beautifully written and heartbreaking book that I recommend highly.
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felt like an outsider in both communities.The core of the book relates to her mother's cancer diagnosis, slow decline, and death. Zauner reflects on how this period drew her closer to her mother and see her in a different way. Food is central to the narrative as Zauner finds learning how to cook traditional Korean recipes as a way to connect to her Korean identity. It's a beautifully written and heartbreaking book that I recommend highly.
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LibraryThing member bobbybslax
I share the feeling of another who said it needed to be written but not necessarily read. Not a lot of higher meaning is drawn from the author's grief, though thoroughly and eloquently described in all its nuance. In essence, it came across as a therapeutic effort suited mainly for those who share
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similar troubles with their parents, identity, or the death of a loved one. That isn't to say I didn't get anything out of it; just that there were a couple stretches I found dull despite being deeply sad. The original New York Times piece the book expands from is probably the most potent section to me, and it starts off the book. I appreciated the section detailing her wedding as well, but ultimately, I imagine I got less out of it than Zauner herself did. Grief memoirs in general are probably like that for a lot of readers. Show Less
LibraryThing member ablachly
This fantastic and intense memoir is an honest and unflinching reflection on grief, identity, family, and food.
LibraryThing member bookworm12
This is a grief memoir by a Korean-American musician. The author’s raw honesty about both her pain and her bittersweet memories were hard to read. As someone who also lost her Mom to cancer at a young age, I know I’m sensitive to the subject. I really appreciated that she didn’t gloss over
BOTTOM LINE: Powerful, but painful.
“It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people: those who had felt pain and those who had yet to.”
Sidenote: I had just finished watching Kim's Convenience when I started this. That show, about a Korean family in Canada, gave me a good base of understanding for some of the cultural elements mentioned in the book.
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the hurt from her childhood and turn her mother into a saint. Mothers and daughters have complicated relationships. Korean food also plays a huge role in the book. It was her mother’s love language and the author’s deepest connection to her Asian heritage. BOTTOM LINE: Powerful, but painful.
“It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people: those who had felt pain and those who had yet to.”
Sidenote: I had just finished watching Kim's Convenience when I started this. That show, about a Korean family in Canada, gave me a good base of understanding for some of the cultural elements mentioned in the book.
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LibraryThing member Hccpsk
I struggle with memoirs by young authors because I find the lack of life experience tends to lead to a lot of self-involved navel-gazing. Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart certainly brings the twenty-something angst I dislike, but with enough interesting parts to make it worthwhile. With a
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Korean mother and a white father, Zauner finds herself in the ever-widening group of mixed ethnicity Americans wrestling with where they belong. Her mother’s cancer diagnosis is the center of the memoir as Zauner returns home to care for her, and as a result, she examines their relationship. The best part of the story is the food which was often at the heart of the connection between Zauner and her mom. I listened to the audio which Zauner very successfully read herself, which definitely heightened the reading experience for me. Show Less
LibraryThing member Narshkite
Really pretty perfect. A beautiful elegy to her mother, a ride-along as Zauner pulls together the strings of her life to define her personal identity (in large part through food), a love letter to her husband, and a chronicle of the long and winding coming of age as an artist. I am a casual fan of
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Japanese Breakfast, but it turns out I am rather a superfan of Michelle Zauner. Show Less
LibraryThing member Iudita
This book is part grief memoir, part cultural exploration. The author loses her mother to cancer which leaves her feeling empty and unmoored. Her mother was her only connection to her Korean heritage which was demonstrated through her delicious, traditional Korean cooking. Zauner grows up
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completely taking this for granted until she loses it. The book follows the author through her mother's illness and death and then follows the author's attempt to re-connect with her Korean roots by learning to cook authentic dishes. The book is quite tender and emotional and Foodies will love the descriptions of the cuisine. Crying in H Mart honours Zauner's mother and honours her Korean heritage. Show Less
LibraryThing member JJbooklvr
So powerful and emotional. Especially if you lost a parent to Cancer. Mother/daughter bonds. Cultural identity. Plus the food. So much food. I immediately wanted to see what Korean markets and restaurants are in my area. Make this your memoir to read in 2021.
LibraryThing member EllenH
I really liked the book, kind of a 3.5. Her emotions tied into the foods of her family was something I could relate to and her love/hate relationship with her Mom as she grew up. Her loss of family also was so well done.
LibraryThing member viviennestrauss
You know it is going to be an emotional read when you start tearing up on page 1. I alternated between missing my own mother and craving food I've never eaten.
"Sometimes my grief feels as though I've been left alone in a room with no doors. Every time I remember my mother is dead, it feels like
"Sometimes my grief feels as though I've been left alone in a room with no doors. Every time I remember my mother is dead, it feels like
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I'm colliding with a wall that won't give. There's no escape, just a a hard surface that I keep ramming into over and over, a reminder of the immutable reality that I will never see her again." Show Less
LibraryThing member Carolee888
Just finished Crying in H Mart by Michele Zauner. It is a very intense book. It is a memoir, but it is the author's of grief after taking her during a deadly illness. A daughter's relationship with her often critical mother. The emotions explode in this book. The ultimate bonding with her mother
Her father was called by her mother “a broken plate”. He lost his mother early one and his father deserted the family, His older brothers didn’t give him emotional support, so he had trouble relating to everyone. I enjoyed the book very much, but it is not a relaxing book. He could not give emotional support because he had never experienced it himself.
The scenes of her mother dying are harrowing. Going through her mother's possession after her passing gave the author surprises and helped to create a peace for her.
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was through food.Her father was called by her mother “a broken plate”. He lost his mother early one and his father deserted the family, His older brothers didn’t give him emotional support, so he had trouble relating to everyone. I enjoyed the book very much, but it is not a relaxing book. He could not give emotional support because he had never experienced it himself.
The scenes of her mother dying are harrowing. Going through her mother's possession after her passing gave the author surprises and helped to create a peace for her.
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LibraryThing member akblanchard
Biracial musician and author Michelle Zauner connects to her Korean heritage, and her mother, through food. When her mother suffers and eventually passes away due to cancer, the author finds comfort in her lifelong habit of eating exotic Korean dishes.
This book has spent weeks on the NYT nonfiction
Except for a few memorable details, such as Zauner's Tiger Mom wearing her daughter's new shoes in order to spare the girl the pain of having to break them in herself, this book just didn’t speak to me.
This book has spent weeks on the NYT nonfiction
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bestseller list, and while there were some aspects of it I liked, the whole didn't work as well for me well as I thought it would. A lot of Korean foods are mentioned and some are described in detail, but the gustatory aspect of this memoir didn't hold my interest. More salient to me was the mother-daughter conflict at the center of the narrative, but Zauner's transformation from rebellious teen to dutiful adult didn't seem all that remarkable, or unexpected. Except for a few memorable details, such as Zauner's Tiger Mom wearing her daughter's new shoes in order to spare the girl the pain of having to break them in herself, this book just didn’t speak to me.
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LibraryThing member breic
The best of the death-of-a-loved-one memoirs that I've read recently. Less treacly and Martha Stewart-perfect than "When Breath Becomes Air." Still, the early memoir portion is better than the cancer and death portion.
> On my birthday, we ate miyeokguk—a hearty seaweed soup full of nutrients
> There was no one in the world that was ever as critical or could make me feel as hideous as my mother, but there was no one, not even Peter, who ever made me feel as beautiful. Deep down I always believed her
> I racked my brain for something I could make them for breakfast and landed on doenjang jjigae, the ultimate Korean comfort food. My mother often served it alongside our Korean meals, a rich, hearty stew filled with vegetables and tofu. I had never made the dish myself, but I knew its basic components and what it should taste like. Still in bed, I turned onto my side and googled how to make Korean fermented soybean soup. The first link led me to a website run by a woman named Maangchi.
> why hadn’t she written it in Korean? Had she translated it specifically for me? There was a part of me that felt, or maybe hoped, that after my mother died, I had absorbed her in some way, that she was a part of me now.
> I wondered if the late bloom of her creative interests had shed light on my own artistic impulses. If my own creativity had come from her in the first place. If in another life, if circumstances had been different, she might have been an artist, too.
> If dreams were hidden wishes, why couldn’t I dream of my mother the way I wanted? Why was it that whenever she appeared she was still sick, as if I could not remember her the way she’d been before?
> I decided to turn to a familiar friend—Maangchi, the YouTube vlogger who had taught me how to cook doenjang jjigae and jatjuk in my time of need. Each day after work, I prepared a new recipe from her catalog.
> The smell of vegetables fermenting in a fragrant bouquet of fish sauce, garlic, ginger, and gochugaru radiated through my small Greenpoint kitchen, and I would think of how my mother always used to tell me never to fall in love with someone who doesn’t like kimchi. They’ll always smell it on you, seeping through your pores. Her very own way of saying, “You are what you eat.”
> On my birthday, we ate miyeokguk—a hearty seaweed soup full of nutrients
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that women are encouraged to eat postpartum and that Koreans traditionally eat on their birthdays to celebrate their mothers. … My birthday arrived four days into our stay. For the occasion, Nami made miyeokguk, a hearty seaweed soup full of nutrients that pregnant women are encouraged to eat postpartum. Traditionally, you eat it on your birthday in celebration of your mother.> There was no one in the world that was ever as critical or could make me feel as hideous as my mother, but there was no one, not even Peter, who ever made me feel as beautiful. Deep down I always believed her
> I racked my brain for something I could make them for breakfast and landed on doenjang jjigae, the ultimate Korean comfort food. My mother often served it alongside our Korean meals, a rich, hearty stew filled with vegetables and tofu. I had never made the dish myself, but I knew its basic components and what it should taste like. Still in bed, I turned onto my side and googled how to make Korean fermented soybean soup. The first link led me to a website run by a woman named Maangchi.
> why hadn’t she written it in Korean? Had she translated it specifically for me? There was a part of me that felt, or maybe hoped, that after my mother died, I had absorbed her in some way, that she was a part of me now.
> I wondered if the late bloom of her creative interests had shed light on my own artistic impulses. If my own creativity had come from her in the first place. If in another life, if circumstances had been different, she might have been an artist, too.
> If dreams were hidden wishes, why couldn’t I dream of my mother the way I wanted? Why was it that whenever she appeared she was still sick, as if I could not remember her the way she’d been before?
> I decided to turn to a familiar friend—Maangchi, the YouTube vlogger who had taught me how to cook doenjang jjigae and jatjuk in my time of need. Each day after work, I prepared a new recipe from her catalog.
> The smell of vegetables fermenting in a fragrant bouquet of fish sauce, garlic, ginger, and gochugaru radiated through my small Greenpoint kitchen, and I would think of how my mother always used to tell me never to fall in love with someone who doesn’t like kimchi. They’ll always smell it on you, seeping through your pores. Her very own way of saying, “You are what you eat.”
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LibraryThing member banjo123
This is a lovely book about love and grief. Zauner's mother was Korean, and the title refers to times after her death, when she would find herself sobbing in H-Mart (A Korean Grocery Chain); as the food there reminded her of her mother. Sort of like Proust's Madeline; only smellier, and more
“We don’t talk about it. There’s never so much as a knowing look. We sit here in silence, eating our lunch. But I know we are all here for the same reason. We’re all searching for a piece of home, or a piece of ourselves. We look for a taste of it in the food we order and the ingredients we buy. Then we separate. We bring the haul back to our dorm rooms or our suburban kitchens, and we re-create the dish that couldn’t be made without our journey. What we’re looking for isn’t available at a Trader Joe’s. H Mart is where your people gather under one odorous roof, full of faith that they’ll find something they can’t find anywhere else.”
Zauner is a good writer, emotional without being overly sentimental, and I highly recommend this book. It also explores issues of being biracial and unsure of one's cultural identity. Also, a plus for me; I hadn't realized before reading the book, but Zauner grew up in Eugene, Oregon; so lots of Oregon references.
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emotional. She describes the food court in the H-Mart in Suburban Philadelphia:“We don’t talk about it. There’s never so much as a knowing look. We sit here in silence, eating our lunch. But I know we are all here for the same reason. We’re all searching for a piece of home, or a piece of ourselves. We look for a taste of it in the food we order and the ingredients we buy. Then we separate. We bring the haul back to our dorm rooms or our suburban kitchens, and we re-create the dish that couldn’t be made without our journey. What we’re looking for isn’t available at a Trader Joe’s. H Mart is where your people gather under one odorous roof, full of faith that they’ll find something they can’t find anywhere else.”
Zauner is a good writer, emotional without being overly sentimental, and I highly recommend this book. It also explores issues of being biracial and unsure of one's cultural identity. Also, a plus for me; I hadn't realized before reading the book, but Zauner grew up in Eugene, Oregon; so lots of Oregon references.
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LibraryThing member alanna1122
So, for some reason, it didn't register to me that a book with 'crying' in the title would be very sad.
This book is very sad. I find sad books really not my thing. I enjoyed a lot about it. Especially food and travel descriptions. I really loved the descriptions of life in Seoul etc.
After I
I hadn't heard of them before so that seemed like a very funny coincidence,
This book is very sad. I find sad books really not my thing. I enjoyed a lot about it. Especially food and travel descriptions. I really loved the descriptions of life in Seoul etc.
After I
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finished it I randomly played a video game that was scored by the writer's band.I hadn't heard of them before so that seemed like a very funny coincidence,
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LibraryThing member brenzi
Memoir dealing with the author's grief over the illness and death of her mother and her many regrets over the sour relationship between the two and how that impacted her in the end. Interesting that she found she could heal herself through the Korean food and habits that her mother brought her up
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knowing. Sad of course but somehow uplifting. Show Less
LibraryThing member rmarcin
Memoir of a young Korean American girl who is mourning the death of her mother due to cancer. Michelle can't go into a Korean grocery store without crying, trying to recall all the meals and the tastes she shared with her mother. These things evoke memories, and Michelle doesn't want to let them
Along with her boyfriend, Peter, she takes care of her mother, and travels to Oregon, then Korea and elsewhere to help her mother say goodbye to this life.
This is a moving account of the grief that one feels when someone so close to you is taken far too soon. It is a story of trying to hold onto each memory and remember what your mother gave to you.
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go. She tries to learn her mother's culture before it is too late. Along with her boyfriend, Peter, she takes care of her mother, and travels to Oregon, then Korea and elsewhere to help her mother say goodbye to this life.
This is a moving account of the grief that one feels when someone so close to you is taken far too soon. It is a story of trying to hold onto each memory and remember what your mother gave to you.
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LibraryThing member ccayne
I'm a sucker for memoirs about losing a parent and this one did not disappoint. Zauner describes her complicated relationship with her mother beautifully. Her mother's decline expanded her knowledge of her mother's family in Korea and also became a catalyst for major changes in her personal life.
LibraryThing member annbury
Michelle Zauner, half Korean and half "regular American", lost her mother when Michelle was 25. Her mother was just 55, and the two had only begun rebuilding a relationship after Michelle's painful adolescence. Her grief was not just for her mother, but for a part of herself -- the Korean part,
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with which she had had a complex and difficult relationship. In her grief, she turned to cooking Korean food to connect with her mother, and with Korean culture. This can be a hard book to read. She discusses the progress of her mother's illness with no holds barred, and discusses her own emotions just as openly. But it is well worth reading. We all suffer loss, and Michelle's experience reminds us that healing does begin at last. Show Less
LibraryThing member novelcommentary
Crying in H Mart Michelle Zauner
A different kind of read for me, venturing into a memoir, written by a twenty something Korean rock star, but in truth this is a touching story of a young girl dealing with the death of her mother. In doing so she achieves a kind of peace in learning to cook the
"I’ll cry when I see a Korean grandmother eating seafood noodles in the food court, discarding shrimp heads and mussel shells onto the lid of her daughter’s tin rice bowl. Her gray hair frizzy, cheekbones protruding like the tops of two peaches, tattooed eyebrows rusting as the ink fades out."
Lines:
Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn’t care if it hurt like hell in the meantime. When I got hurt, she felt it so deeply, it was as though it were her own affliction. She was guilty only of caring too much. I realize this now, only in retrospect. No one in this world would ever love me as much as my mother, and she would never let me forget it. “Stop crying! Save your tears for when your mother dies.” This was a common proverb in my household.
Some of the earliest memories I can recall are of my mother instructing me to always “save ten percent of yourself.”
gochujang, a sweet-and-spicy paste that’s one of the three mother sauces used in pretty much all Korean dishes.
tangsuyuk—a glossy, sweet-and-sour orange pork—seafood noodle soup, fried rice, and black bean noodles.
Nowadays, South Korea has the highest rate of cosmetic surgery in the world, with an estimated one in three women in their twenties having undergone some type of procedure, and the seeds of that circumstance run deep in the language and mores of the country.
Food poisoning was a rite of passage. You couldn’t expect to eat well without taking a few risks, and we suffered the consequences twice a year.
The cowboy boots arrived in one of these packages after my parents had vacationed in Mexico. When I slipped them on I discovered they’d already been broken in. My mother had worn them around the house for a week, smoothing the hard edges in two pairs of socks for an hour every day, molding the flat sole with the bottom of her feet, wearing in the stiffness, breaking the tough leather to spare me all discomfort.
“I had an abortion after you because you were such a terrible child!”
That it would ruin the way I saw my father, like a broken plate you’ve glued back together and have to keep using, but all you can see is the crack.
Whenever Mom had a dream about shit, she would buy a scratch card.
and I would think of how my mother always used to tell me never to fall in love with someone who doesn’t like kimchi. They’ll always smell it on you, seeping through your pores. Her very own way of saying, “You are what you eat.”
Dozens of kids left the venue with sleeves of vinyl held under their arms, fanning out into the city streets, my mother’s face on the cover, her hand reaching toward the camera like she’s just let go of the hand of someone below.
A different kind of read for me, venturing into a memoir, written by a twenty something Korean rock star, but in truth this is a touching story of a young girl dealing with the death of her mother. In doing so she achieves a kind of peace in learning to cook the
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Korean food her mother made. The story details Michelle Zauner's childhood, at first rebelling against the Korean customs being forced upon her, one of the few Asian kids growing up in Eugene, Oregon. Then as she starts to flourish in her own independence, musical success, a boyfriend,... her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer. So at 25, Michelle returns to care for her mother, and during that time reclaims some of the identity, the culture and especially the foods that are a part of her. So yes that is why "I’ll cry when I see a Korean grandmother eating seafood noodles in the food court, discarding shrimp heads and mussel shells onto the lid of her daughter’s tin rice bowl. Her gray hair frizzy, cheekbones protruding like the tops of two peaches, tattooed eyebrows rusting as the ink fades out."
Lines:
Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn’t care if it hurt like hell in the meantime. When I got hurt, she felt it so deeply, it was as though it were her own affliction. She was guilty only of caring too much. I realize this now, only in retrospect. No one in this world would ever love me as much as my mother, and she would never let me forget it. “Stop crying! Save your tears for when your mother dies.” This was a common proverb in my household.
Some of the earliest memories I can recall are of my mother instructing me to always “save ten percent of yourself.”
gochujang, a sweet-and-spicy paste that’s one of the three mother sauces used in pretty much all Korean dishes.
tangsuyuk—a glossy, sweet-and-sour orange pork—seafood noodle soup, fried rice, and black bean noodles.
Nowadays, South Korea has the highest rate of cosmetic surgery in the world, with an estimated one in three women in their twenties having undergone some type of procedure, and the seeds of that circumstance run deep in the language and mores of the country.
Food poisoning was a rite of passage. You couldn’t expect to eat well without taking a few risks, and we suffered the consequences twice a year.
The cowboy boots arrived in one of these packages after my parents had vacationed in Mexico. When I slipped them on I discovered they’d already been broken in. My mother had worn them around the house for a week, smoothing the hard edges in two pairs of socks for an hour every day, molding the flat sole with the bottom of her feet, wearing in the stiffness, breaking the tough leather to spare me all discomfort.
“I had an abortion after you because you were such a terrible child!”
That it would ruin the way I saw my father, like a broken plate you’ve glued back together and have to keep using, but all you can see is the crack.
Whenever Mom had a dream about shit, she would buy a scratch card.
and I would think of how my mother always used to tell me never to fall in love with someone who doesn’t like kimchi. They’ll always smell it on you, seeping through your pores. Her very own way of saying, “You are what you eat.”
Dozens of kids left the venue with sleeves of vinyl held under their arms, fanning out into the city streets, my mother’s face on the cover, her hand reaching toward the camera like she’s just let go of the hand of someone below.
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LibraryThing member kayanelson
This was a nice memoir in which Michelle Zauner pays tribute to her mother. I have been blessed to have a wonderful relationship with my mother so it’s hard for me to understand some of the angst these two had with each other. But my mother is not Korean and so the cultural differences may have
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something to do with it. The constant corrections and criticisms the mother makes isn’t good for a child. Some are but you must pick and choose your battles for what is important. Show Less
LibraryThing member Maydacat
This very personal and intimate memoir about the author and her dying mother is quite touching. But it was really too personal. The author disclosed things that, in my opinion, should have been kept for herself and close family and friends. I felt nearly voyeuristic in reading about her mother’s
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dying days and the grief experienced by the family during that time and after her death. This incredibly sad journey was somewhat offset by some happier memories, though not all her childhood memories were happy, either. The author’s descriptions of her Korean culture, most especially the food, were quite interesting. And her discovery of her cooking skills as she delved into Korean dishes was also interesting. This memoir was undoubtedly cathartic for the author, but a little too revealing for me. Show Less
Awards
American Book Award (2022)
Independent Booksellers' Book Prize (Shortlist — Non-Fiction — 2022)
BookTube Prize (Octofinalist — Nonfiction — 2022)
NPR: Books We Love (2021)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Memoir — 2021)
Indie Next List ([2021])
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2021)
New York Public Library Best Books: For Adults (Nonfiction — 2021)
Pages
256
ISBN
1984898957 / 9781984898951