Crying in H Mart - Outside of a Dog

hardcover, 256 pages

Published April 20, 2021 by Knopf Publishing Group, Knopf.

ISBN:: 978-0-525-65774-3
OCLC Number:: 1195817822

A memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

Michelle Zauner 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 …

A memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

Michelle Zauner 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.

10 editions

benwerd@bookwyrm.social reviewed Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

I miss you.

5 stars

I also lost my mother to a long, hard illness, and this book resonated with her story. The details are different, the characters are different, but the shape of grief, and the immigrant backdrop of my family, are the same. I cried, a lot. I was angry at the injustice of the universe, a lot. And I was grateful that this book was written with such honesty, such care, such love. I felt a lot of things that I don’t know I wanted to feel again, and I’m better for it.

Josh Daymude reviewed Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

A Rare and Beautiful Expression of Biraciality

4 stars

Michelle Zauner’s memoir of her mother expertly navigates themes of biracial identity, Korean food, and human suffering. Owing to the many life experiences Zauner and I share as half-Korean, half-white people, she speaks to realities that have always eluded my own expression. For that—and for her beautiful, spiritual descriptions of Korean food—I am deeply grateful.

Long version: jdaymude.github.io/review/book-crying-in-h-mart/