Please don’t hate me, but I didn’t love this book. I really struggled to get through it (could be the reading slump) and ended up switching to audio to read the last 75%. The writing is solid and the middle half was the strongest part. I just couldn’t connect in the ways I’d hoped to.
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I am mixed race like the author (I’m Black, Zauner is Korean) and I too lost my non-white parent at 25 years old and I was shocked how I was and wasn’t able to connect to Zauner’s experiences of both loss of a parent and loss of a part of cultural identity. There were moments I was like “Wow, is she me?” and other parts that had close to zero emotional resonance. I only note this because I was worried this book would wreck me, and instead I was reminded grief and death effect us all so differently. I knew that, of course, but it was a welcome reminder.
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It’s also worth noting that food and grief seem to be so deeply connected for so many people. I loved the ways food showed up in CRYING IN H MART. It was specific and by far my favorite through line in the book.

This is an incredible debut novel. Zauner is masterful in blending elegy and memoir.

The overwrought emphasis on food does, at times, remind me of sitting in on an annoying non-fiction master student workshop, but other than that, Crying In H-Mart is an earnest and heart-breaking read that anyone—-especially anyone that’s dealt with extreme grief—can relate to.

Michelle Zauner has written a beautiful memoir and has a unique take on the mother-daughter relationship. Grief at the loss of her mother is uniquely explored and that realization that mothers are people also is accepted. Yet, her experience as singer and singwriter for an indie rock group adds a fresh perspective to her grief and loss.
The connection with her Korean background through food added a special touch. Who wasn't hungry throughout this entire reading? Special read!

Crying in H Mart is less of a narrative and more a series of memories. When I took a step back and read the book as almost a short story collection, I enjoyed it a lot more. It's a deep dive into a specific culture, from the inside.

Non-fiction, especially memoirs, are generally not something that I gravitate towards and yet something drew me towards Crying in H Mart.

I think the author wrote about grief and healing in an emotionally gripping and unflinchingly real way. Not all parts of healing are pretty and yet I think she did justice to them all in these pages.
Especially where as an adult she had to learn and accept who her mother was as a person not just as a mother.

While it is mostly centered on the grief and loss of the authors mother, I really enjoyed and appreciated the themes of culture and food too. Especially how the two are irrevocably intertwined.

A fresh voice in the literature of growing up Asian American. Known previously for her singing and songwriting with the indie-rock group, Japanese Breakfast, Zauner recounts her sometimes turbulent life with her Korean mother, American father, and the anguish over her mother’s death from cancer while still in her 50s. Their shared love of Korean food forms the basis for their reconciliation shortly before her passing away. A bittersweet memoir that will stay with the reader.

I have loved Japanese Breakfast for a long time, and actually recently saw them in concert, so getting this insight into the life behind the songs on their albums was incredible. Beyond that, it was really cool to read a book by another half asian in America, exploring how this aspect of her identity has shaped her life and work as a writer. This book was also devastating, especially with these added connections, and a true exploration of grief and unimaginable loss. The writing met the challenge of the subject, and reading this story in Zauner's voice made it incredibly poignant.

Heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. I loved the descriptions of the food and the connection between who you are and what foods you crave.

Written by Michelle Zauner, the lead singer of indie rock band Japanese Breakfast, CRYING IN H MART is a memoir centered around both grief and food as the author navigates losing her mother to cancer as well as understanding the Korean side of her family better through the culture’s cuisine.⁣
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If you’re anything like me, you’ll somehow weep as your stomach growls through this beautifully written and thoughtful book that really reflects on how we can know our moms, how we can care for them when they need us, and how we can keep them with us after they are gone. It’s also a book about being the child of an immigrant, a person straddled between two cultures, and a kid with the dream of being a rock star. It’s one of my favorite reads from 2021!⁣
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I happen to also be part Korean (except on my dad’s side) and this book hit me in places in my heart that I didn’t know I had. Like in so many cultures, food is heavy with meaning and importance in Korea, and Zauner’s journey to understanding (and producing) the food that her mom loves is rawly emotional and rich in detail. I dare you to read this book without then buying a Korean cookbook!

Michelle Zauner intimately shares the grief of losing her mother with the world in this beautiful and evocative memoir.

This is a beautiful memoir about love, loss, grief, family, and finding yourself. I so appreciated Zauner's openness and vulnerability in writing her story, and although my story is different, I could relate to so many of her emotions and feelings after losing a parent at a relatively young age.

A must-read moving memoir chronicling the author's relationship with her mother and their shared Korean American heritage.

A really lovely and heartbreaking read about Michelle Zauner's relationship with her mother, her culture, and her grief. Zauner writes about the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters during youth, adolescence, and adulthood, which I found so relatable. She does not try to pretend that her mother was perfect; she lets her humanness shine through in a beautiful way.

Great musician. I love Japanese Breakfast, I even worked hard to review her latest album. I was so happy to get approved for this book. I was surprised that it focused more on personal versus music. But still a great book.

A clear-eyed look at grief that is both poignant and difficult, but never becomes too maudlin. The descriptions of illness do not hold back but I felt this was a somewhat therapeutic as it was never over sentimentalized. As a long time H Mart shopper I appreciated hearing about the comfort foods described in the book.

Zauner's memoir is grief--you grieve while you read it. You grieve all the things lost by not talking about them. The person you knew but the life you didn't, the feelings and stories you realize you were a side character to, the food. The food, which says more than words ever could. Never have I been so hungry while reading. The sensory descriptions alone are enough to affirm this books' reviews. Zauner invites you to her table. "Let me fix you a plate," she says. Sit at her table, and relish in what she has prepared. It will hurt. You will cry. But you will be thankful you indulged yourself in the experience.

I know I’m late to review this-when it was nominated on Goodreads, I remembered I had requested it. I couldn’t finish this-it was so depressing. I’m only sending in this review to let you know that several library patrons have also told me the same. I think any memoir needs a balance of poignancy and hope. Even more so in the world we live in today.

A heartbreaking, lyrical, but also brutally honest memoir of Michelle Zauner's loving but often fraught relationship with her mother. Food is the tie that binds throughout, from yearly trips to visit family in Korea and the shared meals they had, to Zauner preparing this food while her mother was dying, and after her death, making this food to understand her mother better, work through her grief, and keep a hold on her culture, which she fears will disappear with no immediate family near her any longer.

Beautifully written memoir from a daughters’ perspective of her mother’s journey through cancer as well as a grappling with her Korean identity.

Musical group Japanese Breakfast's frontwoman, Michelle Zauner, details the loss of her mother and their tumultuous relationship, while drawing on the importance of their connection through Korean food and culture.

This was a very emotional memoir to read, and while well written, it was a little clunky and stunted at times. Some of the transitions from one memory or event to the next felt very oddly placed. Some of the earlier memories were not at all chronological and seemed random. Also, while Zauner obviously loved her mother and grieved deeply over her loss, she glosses over how truly toxic her mother was to her at times...Even though their relationship was strong, it was also very strained, and it times it felt odd how Zauner would introduce a memory of a big fight-culminating it verbal or even physical abuse being hurled her way by her mother-and then just brush over it and onto the next story or memory...Also, the focus on food was a little too much at times, as I found myself just wanting to have more chapters about Zauner's life-specifically prior to and following her mother's untimely passing.