Book: Crying in H Mart

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Crying in H Mart
Michelle Zauner
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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 BESTSELLER 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.

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This book was also one of the suggested books that went up for voting in my local book club. I just randomly chose to read this after I finished the book club’s selected book. I went in blind, didn’t know what it’s about.

I don’t have much to say about the literary finesse or style of writing, but I have to say much of this book had caused many a flashback on my own life and childhood.

Generally things like identity (so what am I?) and trying to fit in, trying to do something to be like therapy, and stuff like that.

Relatable sections were like, being in the US and people thinking she is Asian, and being in Asia and people thinking she is foreign. I guess I was luckier in that being in Macau, such ethnically mixed kids were a dime a dozen, the only difference usually was “what mixture are you of?”

Also as a kid being told “so pretty!”, “Mixed face is beautiful!” But then my own aunt actually suggesting me getting a nose job because my nose is too tall (I have the typical Dad’s family high and pointy nose).

Mom being overbearing, always in your business, trying to control my wardrobe. I wonder if these are all characteristics of Asian Moms? It’s true, while nationality-wise and language my Mom isn’t entirely Asian (she has Portuguese heritage, her Dad’s actually from Portugal, I think) but she’s also been brought up in a very Asian environment.

By the end of the book, I learn about the author actually being a singer (Japanese Breakfast) so I guess it’s about time to put my Apple Music subscription to good use and have a listen.

The book was an enjoyable read, just rousing up quite a bit of my personal experience and memories that I don’t want to write about here, not because I don’t want to write about it, I just don’t want to write about it in a book review.