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

Aina

Some of the earliest memories I can recall are of my mother instructing me to always "save ten percent of yourself.” 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.

I 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 seafood, if you had a large appetite. She remembered which banchan 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 other preferences that made you, you.

Sometimes my grief feels as though I've been left alone in a room with no doors. Every time I remember that my mother is dead, it feels like I'm colliding with a wall that won't give. There's no escape, just a hard surface that I keep ramming into over and over, a reminder of the immutable reality that I will never see her again.

My grief comes in waves and is usually triggered by something arbitrary.

Food was how my mother expressed her love. No matter how critical or cruel she could seen—constantly pushing me to meet her intractable expectations—I could always feel her affection radiating from the lunches she packed and the meals she prepared for me just the way I liked them.

Maui Santos

I had an abortion after you because you were such a terrible child!

deniz

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, who ever made me feel as beautiful.

⭐️

That cooking my mother’s food had come to represent an absolute role reversal, a role I was meant to fill. That food was an unspoken language between us, that it had come to symbolize our return to each other, our bonding, our common ground.

tuna

Erika

“Love was an action, an instinct, a response roused by unplanned moments and small gestures, an inconvenience in someone else’s favor.”

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.

Omar Fernandez

Elizabeth 

i read the e-book version a long time ago but didn't finish it, and i continued to read it again after bought the physical book. idk but this book is so dear to me, since i lost my dad years ago. i could relate to many parts, especially how to deal with grief.

"Food was how my mother expressed her love." i think i can see that from how Michelle described about foods in this book. it might be my best read in 2024!

i read the e-book version a long time ago but didn't finish it, and i continued to read it again after bought the physical book. idk but this book is so dear to me, since i lost my dad years ago. i could relate to many parts, especially how to deal with grief.

"Food was how my mother expressed her love." i think i can see that from how Michelle described about foods in this book. it might be my best read in 2024!

Kirsten Kim

a reminder of the importance of (mixed) heritage & and must read for asian americans !!

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.

Eva Ströberg

At first I'm skeptical to read a memoir from a random artist/singer who lives in NYC (who doesn't, really?)

but this book turns out to be quite good. Although we know from the start that she wrote the memoir to remember her mother's passing, there were so many food elements mentioned here that I warn you not to read when hungry (I kid you not). So many beautiful description of Korean dishes (that I have grown to appreciate, thanks to my Korean American friend) thrown here and there in the book.

I can pull a little bit of red-thread from the memoir with my own experience, although I'm not Korean American nor living in the US, my mother is also a Asian tiger mom who would raise her kids with such fierceness that other (white) parents would not be able to relate. However, unlike Zauner who became close to her mother despite their endless fights during her teenage, it didn't happen to us. Still, it's nice to read that it could happen, that daughters forgive their mothers, and mothers forgive their daughters for whatever reasons they fought back then.

Alessandra Tatoy

Michelle Zauner does an excellent job of describing her relationship with her American and Korean identities as well as the grief of losing a parent. She especially hits the mark of most immigrant children building their relationship with their parents' countries in sharing the food that they love. As someone who also grew up in the H Mart food court, she did an excellent job of speaking for second-generation immigrants and their relationships with their parents.

This articulation of grief was really beautiful and reassuring. 

Ashley Denktas

Kiran Aftab

4.5/5: well that hurt. if you like korean food and pain this is the book for you. the author of this book is mad talented

Ryan Mateyk

Michelle Zauner gives us so much: albums, long tours, her every emotion eloquently shared in this memoir. Absolutely beautiful! Gomawoyo nuna!

Sohini Roy

beautifully captures both the teenage daughter vs mother anguish as well as the first generation american identity confusion

Loved the honest telling of her mother daughter relationship and the drama of supporting her mother and father at the end  of her mothers life. It really strikes your heart so many times. A beautiful story.

Elizabeth Weiland

Some parts of Michelle’s mother reminds me of my own and our relationship growing up. Since I’ve graduated and moved to NYC, it has felt like a new chapter for me and mom. I’ve matured, understanding a lot of the wisdom she imparted growing up. I had to learn from my own experience, then go back to her and say, “Ah, yes mom–you were right about that.” I’m sure she finds a lot of satisfaction in those admissions. This relatability makes it even more heart-wrenching to read about her loss. It was a new chapter for Michelle and her mom too, and to see that cut short is really upsetting.

Jevin Sidhu

Some parts of Michelle’s mother reminds me of my own and our relationship growing up. Since I’ve graduated and moved to NYC, it has felt like a new chapter for me and mom. I’ve matured, understanding a lot of the wisdom she imparted growing up. I had to learn from my own experience, then go back to her and say, “Ah, yes mom–you were right about that.” I’m sure she finds a lot of satisfaction in those admissions. This relatability makes it even more heart-wrenching to read about her loss. It was a new chapter for Michelle and her mom too, and to see that cut short is really upsetting.

Other notes:

- The descriptions of food (ingredients, dining experiences, and cooking) were all so fun to read. I need to learn how to prepare dishes like my mom does.

- Each chapter has clearly defined subsections, making the book easy to read in small pieces. It felt like a series of essays.

- This reads authentically because Michelle is candid with her inner thoughts; selfish parts of guilt others might be unwilling to share. 

- I adore how reading this adds texture to Psychopomp.

4/5

Daphne

zauner’s tenderness & honesty about an immigrant mother’s love was breathtaking :”) so so beautiful 

(“I thought of the foresight a mother must have to preserve this kind of thing,”) 

tanya 

zauner’s tenderness & honesty about an immigrant mother’s love was breathtaking :”) so so beautiful 

(“I thought of the foresight a mother must have to preserve this kind of thing,”) 

From the indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker piece, a deeply moving memoir on identity and belonging, grief and joy.

lala

I don’t usually lean towards reading memoirs. But Crying in H Mart has been on my radar for some time, so I read it. In this heart-wrenching memoir, Zauner talked through the journey of her heritage, dealing with her mom’s cancer and eventually, her mom’s passing. This memoir is a series of essays that falls into the mentioned topic, and each essay delves into different aspect of Zauner’s life. As per the title, the first chapter/essay is entitled the same, Zauner talked about how her mother expressed her love through food, and H Mart, an Asian supermarket reminds her of her late mother’s cooking and her memories. It is heart warming, the flow of Zauner’s writing is very easy to read, but keeping you hooked on her life’s journey as well. I cried when Zauner decided to get married so her mom could see her getting married. Reading about how Zauner rediscovered her connection with her mother by trying to cook traditional Korean dishes is very touching. This was an extremely good read, I’m glad I decided to buy this book.

I give H Mart 5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Elisavet Rozaki 

I picked up this book expecting to read just another memoir, but as the chapters went on, I fell in love with the author's writing style. Her descriptive narration made me travel to her mother's kitchen in Oregon, the street markets of Vietnam, her aunt's crowded Seoul apartment. 

This memoir is raw and heartbreaking in the best possible way. 

(I highly recommend listening to Michelle's AKA Japanese Breakfast's music while reading)

Greer Andersson

✰✰✰✰✰
Wow, this was absolutely incredible.
I’m really glad that I switched from the physical copy to the audiobook because it really took it to a higher level hearing Michelle herself narrate it.

She has such an amazing way of story-telling that makes it feel like you are right in her shoes and going through the same experiences.

I won’t spoil anything but I’ll tell you what, I was sobbing driving on the highway home listening to this.

brooklyn leota

I think there’s something special about listening to authors read their own autobiography. 

Although I come from a different background the importance of food in culture and the language barrier feels all so familiar. Crying in H Mart feels like a diary that Michelle has opened up to everyone. It was personal, emotional even the ‘ugly’ parts. I hate thinking about a world without my mother and her missing out on all the amazing things I’ve done. It is heartbreaking yet heartwarming to see what Michelle has done since her mother’s passing.

made me want a better relationship with my mother but don’t we all

anjali

Carmen Malca

truly one of the best books i have read. could not put it down, cried intensely, loved every second! a must read

camille paradis

This book wasn't really for me, it won't stick with me, but I can appreciate the impact it can have for many other readers. Especially for readers of mixed race or readers who have lost a loved one or whose loved one is sick. It wasn't for me, but good book 👍 

Ari Rose

From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American—“in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR) • CELEBRATING OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER LIST

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.

Chitra Kokkirala

Teresa Bonifácio

This book made me cry a lot. Hearing Michelle talking about her mother made me want to hug mine even more everytime. And the description of the Korean recipes? I wanted to try everything!

This book hit so close to home but while reading along, I felt some sort of relief. I'm glad I read this.

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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