Name: Omar Fernandez's review of Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Item: Crying in H Mart
Rating: 3
Author: Omar Fernandez

Michelle Zauner

THE NO 2 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, an unflinching, powerful, deeply moving memoir about growing up mixed-race, Korean food, losing her Korean 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 humour 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, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

Crying in H Mart

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 one of the few Asian American kids 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, and 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 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, 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.

A Memoir

Klara Hansen 

I envied and feared my mother's ability to keep matters private, as every secret I tried to hold close ate away at me. She possessed a rare talent for keeping secrets, even from us. She did not need anyone. She could surprise you with how little she needed you. All those years she instructed me to save 10 percent of myself like she did, I never knew it meant she had also been keeping a part ot herself from me too.

Abigail F

Sometimes my grief feels as though I've been left alone in a room with no doors. 

Dora Tominic

If she liked something, she stuck to it, ate it every day, seemingly never tiring of it, until one day she'd just move on inexplicably.

"From the indie rock star 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 humour 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".

Sarah Christine Gill

I had thought fermentation was controlled death. Left alone, a head of cabbage molds and decomposes. It becomes rotten, inedible. But when brined and stored, the course of its decay is altered. Sugars are broken down to produce lactic acid, which protects it from spoiling. Carbon dioxide is released and the brine acidifies. It ages. Its color and texture transmute. Its flavor becomes tarter, more pungent. It exists in time and transforms. So it is not quite controlled death, because it enjoys a new life altogether. 

Weeks went by before I saw the fridge in person. It was Thanksgiving, the second without my mother. I made sweet potato tempura, which was what my mother always brought to Thanksgiving at Uncle Ron’s house. I remember on the drive over holding the heavy serving plate in my lap, stacked high with fried, battered sweet potatoes covered in cling wrap. On the drive home, the plate would be empty, and my mother would boast about how much my American cousins loved her tempura.

Saved this because I simply do not know what it means!

“I can’t believe you’re actually getting married,” Corey said, gazing at me misty-eyed and in disbelief, as if just the other day we had been twelve, brainstorming names for our tennis balls.

We’d giggle and shush each other as we ate ganjang gejang with our fingers, sucking salty, rich, custardy raw crab from its shell, prodding the meat from its crevices with our tongues, licking our soy sauce–stained fingers. Between chews of a wilted perilla leaf, my mother would say, “This is how I know you’re a true Korean.”

Nami Emo’s room was on the other side of the kitchen, abutting the small balcony that overlooked the street. She had a large, jade-colored vanity, its surface strewn with a hundred different kinds of nail polish. At the beginning of each visit, she would invite me to choose a color and after my careful deliberation, paint my nails on top of newspaper. When she was done, she’d use a special freezing spray from an aerosol can that helped them dry faster. The liquid would foam over my cuticles, then disappear like dry ice sneezed onto my fingertips.

Ausrine Blazyte

Let me feel this, I wanted to scream. Hold me, and let me wall ow in it. I thought to myself that if I ever had children, I'd never tell them to save their tears. That anyone who'd been hardened with those words would grow to hate them just as much as I did. And now discovered my rebellious mother had been scolded with this phrase all along.

 It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people, those who had felt pain and those who had yet to.

 That night, lying beside her, I remembered how when I was a child I would slip my cold feet between my mother's thighs to warm them. How she'd shiver and whisper that she would always suffer to bring me comfort, that that was how you knew someone really loved you.

I remember these things clearly because that was how my mother loved you, not through white lies and constant verbal affirmation, but in subtle observations of what brought you comforted and cared for without even realizing it. She remembered if you liked your stews with extra broth, if you were sensitive to spice, if you hated tomatoes, if you didn't eat seafood, if you hada large appetite. She remembered which banchan side dish you emptied first so the next time you were over itd be set with a heaping double portion, served alongside the various other preferences that made you, you.

Stavros Kosmas

My father and l ranuaiy daminsteIed liquid hydrocodone under her tongue. Minutes felt like hours as we held her, reassuring her over and over that it would pass. At last she settled into a deep sleep. Sandwiching her between us, I filled with insurmountable sadness. The doctor had lied to us. Hed told us she wouldn't feel any pain; hed told us it was his job to make sure of it. He looked into her eyes and made a promise, and he fucking broke it. My mothers last words were pain.

"Gwaenchanh-a, gwaenchanh-a," she said. It's okay, it's okay. Korean words so familiar, the gentle coo Id heard my whole life that assured me whatever ache was at hand would pass. Even as she was dying, my mother offered me solace, her instinct to nurture overwhelming any personal fear she might have felt but kept expertly hidden. She was the only person in the world who could tell me that things would all work out somehow. The eye of the storm, a calm witness to the wreckage spinning out into its end.

This obsession with my mother's caloric intake killed my own appetite. Since ld been in Eugene, I'd lost ten pounds. The little lap of belly my mother always pinched at had disappeared and my hair began to fall out in large chunks in the shower from the stress. In a perverse way I was glad for it. My own weight loss made me feel tied to her. I wanted to embody a physical warning- that if she began to disappear, I would disappear too.

It was not lost on me how different the circumstances were now. Here I was again, this time returned of my own free will, no longer scheming a wild escape into the dark but desperately hoping that a darkness would not come in.

rose <3

What she meant was that, no matter how much you thought you loved someone, or thought they loved you, you never gave all of yourself. Save 10  percent, always, so there was something to fall back on. “Even from Daddy, I save,” she would add.

I remember these things clearly because that was how my mother loved you, not through white lies and constant verbal affirmation, but in subtle observations of what brought you joy, pocketed away to make you feel comforted and cared for without even realizing it.

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....No one in this world would ever love me as much as my mother, and she would never let me forget it.

In my opinion, definitely selfish of the author. A marriage is something one does it willingly at their own pace. Having to drive her then boyfriend to the edge with that “I don’t think I will be able to forgive you” is assigning guilt - manipulation at its best! 

Jun Sani

"If this is something you could see yourself doing in five vears and we don't just do it now, I don't think I will be able to forgive you," I said. 

oonapon

İ remember these things clearly because that was how my mother loved you, not through white lies and constant verbal afirmation. but in subtle observations of what brought you joy, pocketed away to make you feel comforted and cared for without even realizing it. She remembered if you liked your stews with extra broth, if you were sensitive to spice, if you hated tomatoes, if you didnt eat sea food, if you had a large appetite. She remembered which banchat side dish you emptied first so the next time you were over it’d be set with a heaping double portion, served alongside the various othe preferences that made you, you. 

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, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread. PRAISE FOR CRYING IN H MART 'The book's descriptions of jjigae, tteokbokki, and other Korean delicacies stand out as tokens of the deep, all-encompassing love between Zauner and her mother, a love that is charted in vivid descriptions of her mother after death; in a time when people around the world are reckoning with untold loss due to COVID-19, Zauner's frankness around death feels like an unexpected yet deeply necessary gift.' Vogue 'Zauner's writing is powerful in its straight-forwardness, though some turns of phrases are as beautiful as any song lyric... but it is her ability to convey how her mother's simple offering of a rice snack was actually an act of the truest love that leaves the most indelible impression.' Refinery 29 'Poignant . . . A tender, well-rendered, heart-wrenching account of the way food ties us to those who have passed. The author delivers mouthwatering descriptions of dishes like pajeon, jatjuk, and gimbap, and her storytelling is fluid, honest, and intimate . . . Zauner's ability to let us in through taste makes her book stand out- she makes us feel like we are in her mother's kitchen, singing her praises.' Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

kari <33

Omar Fernandez

Daisy Marmion

I noticed I keep on mentioning this book to people months after I finished it. Though it took me a bit longer to get through and it can be quite painful to read certain experiences, the book touches upon very important issues related to family, grief, identity, and food, while the author is being her most vulnerable self.

Emma Prins

Cried like 5x in the first couple chapters lol. Overall very good memoir and it definitely moved me to pursue a better relationship with my own parents. Michelle's way of using word to portray imagery is amazing.

Erika

There are a lot of parts where i feel like im reading a recipe; the food prep was a bit too detailed in my opinion. Nevertheless, it's a great memoir; michelle zauner unknowingly peered into my life and accurately described how she processes her (and in turn, mine) grief after losing a parent. I WILL DEFEND THIS BOOK WITH MY LIFE

Beautiful, devastating and rich with imagery. I cried and moved with her throughout this incredibly crafted tale about grief, food, love and family. 

Giulia

Roisin O'Flaherty 

Loved this from beginning to end! Michelle Zauner really makes you feel like you are going through this with her.

Q&D- beautiful love letter from the author to her mother. A memoir with a focus on how loss and grief can recollect all of your life experiences, and how one collects themselves afterwards. Touching, thoughtful, well written. 

Depressing but an engaging read. A lot of great food stuff, too.

Steven Ovadia

i didn't expect myself to, but then again, i read this at the time where i lost my grandfather. after reading, i cried to my mom. we hugged. i was ugly crying, haven't showered, and poured out everything to her. she didn't cry even though she's a crybaby, and held me up when i was crumbling in her arms. 

asian moms are really tough to their daughters. i too hated the way she was so pushy, controlling, emotional, and passive, but i love her. she loves me more. we reconciled, especially at the time my disorder became worse. we are so much better than we were when i was at the peak of my puberty. 

i never wish for her to leave me the same way my grandfather passed away on a random wednesday. if another, i wish we could die together. i wish that my mom and i will always be together, because she's my bestest friend ever.

kite

i cried.

i didn't expect myself to, but then again, i read this at the time where i lost my grandfather. after reading, i cried to my mom. we hugged. i was ugly crying, haven't showered, and poured out everything to her. she didn't cry even though she's a crybaby, and held me up when i was crumbling in her arms. 

asian moms are really tough to their daughters. i too hated the way she was so pushy, controlling, emotional, and passive, but i love her. she loves me more. we reconciled, especially at the time my disorder became worse. we are so much better than we were when i was at the peak of my puberty. 

i never wish for her to leave me the same way my grandfather passed away on a random wednesday. if another, i wish we could die together. i wish that my mom and i will always be together, because she's my bestest friend ever.

I had no clue that this book will be about THAT. But heavens it was. To add to the coincidences, some months ago we learned how to make kimchi from Maangchi who is almost a character in it. And a few days ago I have sent her video to my mom because we are going to make it together. Tears in the best best way

Disclaimer: this is not a review.

I had no clue that this book will be about THAT. But heavens it was. To add to the coincidences, some months ago we learned how to make kimchi from Maangchi who is almost a character in it. And a few days ago I have sent her video to my mom because we are going to make it together. Tears in the best best way

altlovesbooks

"What we're looking for isn't available at 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."

The author relates her story about growing up Korean American in a way that anyone, of any background, can find something in. She grew up in Oregon to a demanding mother, struck out on her own after troubled teenage years, and then returns to care for the same mom as she's fighting cancer. It's an honest look at self-image, grief, and identity that I absolutely loved to read. 

Her way of writing was stellar even as she described the many different faces of grief and loss, and while I don't really cry from books, this one brought me close. And, I know this is a weird thing to bring up in a sober review like this, but the food descriptions? Like, 5 stars, easy. 6 stars. All the stars.

Highly recommend giving this a read. Incredibly moving, incredibly powerful.

I know this was a memoir but I couldn’t help but feel as though I was intruding on someone’s conversation next to me yet still keenly waiting what would come out of the strangers mouth next. If I were to pick a favourite part, it'd be the one where it said -something along the lines- that no one made her feel more hideous than her mother and at the same time no one made her feel more beautiful. The bond between a mother and daughter - is something that’s so complex yet immeasurably magical. It feels weird to me to rate memoirs but I liked this very much. Hungry but my stomach’s full with my mother love.

🐇

Absolutely beautiful. Had me sobbing the entire second half of the book. Completely life changing. 

Jacque

tugged at my moved-back-and-forth-between-japan-and-america heart. I cried for half an hour from beginning this book. one of the greatest page-turners ever. if anyone knows a book similar to this but for chinese-americans, please let me know. 

Xin Ma

A beautiful and painful memoir with descriptions of food that will leave you hungry. 

Alli

Rita Santos

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 one of the few Asian American kids 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, and 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 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, 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.

Kamu Pancholi

This book absolutely broke my heart, but I'd let Michelle Zauner do it to me over and over again. Nothing could have prepared me for this book. The detailed descriptions of Korean foods and customs (but especially the food) felt so real– this was one of the only books I've read where it didn't feel like the author toned down their culture to make it more palatable for others. She left out no detail, and it made the book feel so much more immersive and real. The author expertly demonstrated how important food was to her family and how it was used to show how much they care.
The author and her mother and their love for each other bleeds through every page of this memoir. I can't even find the words to describe how succinctly Michelle described the relationship between a mother and daughter, every grudge and gratitude, the incredible pressure on each other but the deep, unending love that guides every action. God, I don't want to spoil any details, but the things Michelle's mother did for her were so heart-wrenchingly selfless and just (once again) COMPLETELY guided by devotion. This book was a stunning portrait of the author's mother and a beautiful examination of family, culture, and grief. It demonstrated how Michelle had to find herself anew without her mother, since her identity, her connection to her culture, and her relationship to food were so closely connected to the woman who raised her. 
I felt Michelle's grief and frustration throughout her mother's battle with cancer as if it was my own– I've never read a memoir so intimately detailed that it became immersive. This book taught me to see the love in family photographs. To look around my childhood home and see the work that made it a reality. To hold on tight to every family member that connects me to my culture, especially my mother. This book felt like a warm hug, and I'm getting choked up just writing this. Crying in H Mart is one of those books that changes your worldview forever. I'm so glad to have read it, and I know I'll think about it every day until I read it again.

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, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

momo-reads

Hunger inducing descriptions of food and cooking but a memoir by an entitled and unsympathetic person.

I really liked this book, a memoir about a very specific, forming time in her life. The food, all the descriptions of how they ate and the little moments were my favourite bits. Very honest, warming and brutal.

Laura Gill

A good read - the food descriptions are wonderful, but I didn't find the protagonist or the story so compelling

g.m.

Listen, I don’t think anyone goes into this expecting it to be, at baseline, deeply sad. It is very courageous to be this vulnerable and show even our whiniest selves, and it’s a deeply honest account of how complicated relationships in a family can be. All of that being said, it was a tough read for me to get into and get through. The middle of the book where we get the most detail about her experiences building up to the loss of her mother and the time directly after were most engaging for me; the start and end were difficult to get through. I definitely think it was a good read - and maybe one I will revisit during times of grief and sadness - and it definitely made me hungry. 

Coley T

Rosamund Mather

Was Michelle Zauner's relationship with her mother healthy? No. Does Zauner herself come off at times bratty and manipulative in the book? Yes. But can we really predict how we'd feel or act when finding ourselves in this singular — yet almost universal — situation of slowly losing a parent? No. Nobody in this book is perfect, but I don't think that's the point. I don't think I've ever read such a heartfelt account of what it's like to not understand what you have until it's gone. Brb, listening to Psychopomp again.

i liked it, i think i was expecting a bit more? idk. vibe was off.

Lizzy Jensen

I stopped listening about 30-40% through. So far, the book had deeper moments that were great, but there were also long stretches that weren’t that engaging. I like the connection to food, the themes of wrestling with your ethnic heritage in America, etc. However, I think that my experience is too different to the author’s for this to be more relatable and engaging. 

Omar Fernandez &
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

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