“Crying in H Mart,” by Michelle Zauner, succeeds on so many levels. The travel writing sections, where Zauner describes childhood summer trips to Korea and a later trip to Vietnam with her father after her mother’s death, is as good as any I’ve read from dedicated travel journalists. I’m not a foodie (a word that features in an anecdote between Michelle and her father that is both funny and heartbreaking) but I enjoyed the frequent descriptions of meals and recipes that Zauner remembers and prepares as part of her mourning process for her mother. And “Crying in H Mart” works equally well as a coming of age memoir, the story of a mixed race woman and young artist struggling with her identity and career aspirations.

But these bits, as good as they are, are merely supporting elements to what is the beating heart of “Crying in H Mart”: Zauner’s complicated relationship with her mother and her mother’s sudden sickness and death from pancreatic cancer. In writing both searingly honest and beautifully descriptive,, Zauner brings her mother to vibrant life; the woman who emerges from these pages is a force to be reckoned with and the center of Zauner’s world. It’s a beautiful tribute to her life as well as an honest look at the high cost of her early death. What’s most astonishing is that this is a first book from a woman for whom writing isn’t even her first career; I hope there are many more to come.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review. Recommended.

Holy moly, THIS BOOK. I've been a fan of Michelle Zauner's music for years, and when I read the essay that inspired this book, I loved that she was such a talented nonfiction writer on top of being a talented musician and songwriter. I knew I would devour this book when it came out, but I was blown away by this book despite my already high expectations. Michelle not only brings to life her feelings and experiences with grief, but also so many other facets of her life: her relationship with food, with her husband, with her parents and extended family, with music, with her Korean heritage. There's a reason this book is topping all the bestseller lists.

This was a fantastic read. It just happened that I was visiting Eugene the day I started reading it, not even realizing so much of the book takes place there. Having lived there myself many years ago I loved her detailed descriptions of the area. I could see it all in my mind.

The topic of the book is gut wrenching as someone who has also lost my mom. I had to put it down at times because it was so real, but so beautiful.

I’ve already recommended this book before I even finished.

Thanks @Netgalley for the galley copy.

This was a moving memoir that beautifully communicated the many relationships we have with our parents (as dependents, caregivers, friends, antagonists...) and the complexities of grief at their passing. Thanks to Michelle Zauner for sharing these sometimes happy, sad, painful, and raw moments with your readers.

Crying in HMart
by Michelle Zauner

This was one of the most personal autobiographies I have come across in a long while. It took me so long to finish it because it deeply affected me on so many levels. I had to read a bit, get overly emotional, put it down, wait a while until I was okay again, and then pick it back up. This kept happening for over several months because it felt like I was invading her personal diary.

Michelle Zauner and her mother were estranged. The entire family dynamic is fractured. Her father calls her up to tell her, her mother is sick but it’s okay and she need not come out to Oregon. Currently Zauner lives in Pennsylvania with her boyfriend. The father however, contacts the boyfriend to explain, not all is actually well. Zauner’s mother is dying and has stage 4 cancer.

Zauner goes to her mother and tries to get to know her again. They were estranged because of how she grew up. She is a HAPA. She is half Korean and half caucasian. She’s not Korean enough because of her thinking and that fact that she wasn’t born in Korea or speaks the language and she feels she doesn’t fit in with the caucasians, either. Her mother wants her to be a great student and become something other than an artist. In Zauner’s case, a musician. Her mom is also a Tiger Mom, as Zauner puts it.

Her father is more of an absentee father. His upbringing is heartbreaking and never had a mother to take care of him so he was left to his own devices since he was young (age 9). His brother even thought it was funny to give him drugs at a very young tender age just to see him go crazy. Who does that?! Zauner’s father doesn’t get his act together until he becomes a car salesman in the army. THere he finds structure and his wife (Zauner’s mom) and together, they move to Oregon and live there. However, like the American dream, to make more money, he put in a lot of OT and escaped at work so that he didn’t have to go home. He figured if he makes the money, he can do whatever he wants. Tip, if you let your kid use your computer, please, don’t go on dating apps where she can see you’re looking at ladies you’re corresponding with and having affairs with.

She never told her mom about her father’s affairs but she does experience the struggles of two distinct cultures clashing. The only thing she can find a bond with was when her mom cooked Korean food for her. As her mother is now dying of pancreatic cancer, she tries to bond with her mom and get to know her. They also have a Korean person taking care of the mom and she kind of pushes both Zauner and her father out of the way as she totally dominates Zauner’s mother’s care. Still, Zauner tries to learn how to cook Korean food and learn all the necessary ingredients in making this dish. Zauner goes back in time as she is telling you her story and you can almost hear her heartbreak. I wasn’t fortunate enough to get this in audio yet I can still hear the haunting voice.

Her mother unfortunately passes and she and her father are still estranged. Even as he suggests they go away together to Vietnam, they are still no closer. He is trying but yet he is emotionally distant. He’s still in his own world. Even as they went through her mother’s stuff, she saw photographs of her that her mother took. She even sees the candid photos of her mom, which she cherishes the most because her mom isn’t posed and is at her most natural. She even comes across a piece of jewelry which she decides to hold onto. (More on that later.)

As Zauner still struggles in finding her place and coming to terms with her grief, she and her now husband go to Korea. There she meets one of her mother’s closest childhood friends. There were the three of them. Now that her mom has passed, this is the only surviving person left out of the trio. Zauner recognizes the jewelry the woman is wearing and she gives the woman her mother’s jewelry, knowing it has significance. All Zauner’s life, she felt so alone and alien to her mother. Her mother just couldn’t understand her and was very sharp with Zauner. When the lady tells Zauner that she reminds her of Zauner’s mother, this fills Zauner with joy. She feels more of a connection.

This incredible memoir truly feels as if I went into Zauner’s home and found and read her personal diary. I feel it was such an intimate and honest portrayal of how she felt, I almost felt as if I am an intruder to her most inner thoughts.

I look at my own children and call them to let them know how much they mean to me and that I love them. I apologize if I was ever too much of a Tiger Mom and told them how proud I am of them.

I want to thank NetGallery for an advanced copy. While I have the PDF form of it, I will be ordering a hard copy of one to keep.

This was such a sweet and heartfelt book. I loved to learn about the Korean food and history and how much it was weaved into the story. I loved the relationship between mother and daughter. I loved the descriptions of her thoughts and memories as she bears witness to her mother's struggle with cancer.

I very much enjoyed this memoir about the loss of her mother. Very engaging, interesting, honest, and touching.

Crying in H-Mart is about how Zauner grieved and honored (and continues to honor) her mother through Korean food and using it as a connection to her Korean heritage. Memoirs are a difficult genre for me since I either need to be wow-ed by the writing or know the author for me to be emotionally invested in the book. While I wasn’t blown away by Zauner’s writing, because the book is largely about Korean food, I couldn’t help but love it. Korean food is such a big part of my life and how I continue to find comfort. It’s impossible to read the book without thinking of your own mother’s death so I found myself putting down the book to bawl my eyes out .

There were many passages from the book that made me smile as I nodded by head in agreement. There is no recipe to Korean food. We continue to add sesame oil, gochujang, soy sauce, garlic, red pepper flakes, sugar, over and over again until the food smells and tastes “just right.” Whenever I visit H-Mart , just like it’d be a crime to purchase Lotte Choco pies (only Orion!) when I look for my staples, it’s always Soonchang gochujang, Kadoya sesame oil, Kikkoman soy sauce I buy, the same ones my mom used in when she cooked for us.

Asians show their love through food. We make blunt comments on one’s weight and appearance, even love life. But because we show our love through food, we always want to know if you ate. And even if you did eat, we’re still going to insist you eat something we have prepared for you.

Thank you, Michelle Zauner, for sharing this book with the world. Thank you for reminding me to appreciate my mother. And for inspiring me to show the love I have towards my loved ones through food❤️

A very moving book about mothers and daughters. I was very touched by her resilience. Memories through familiar foods are so beautifully described.

I didn't expect to be so moved by this memoir. I've never listened to Zauner's band Japanese Breakfast, nor am I a foodie. But her portrait of mothers and daughters and broken fathers really touched me. Her narration for the audiobook is intimate and gripping and made me cry in the car.

Rock and roll, hearty food, love and death. In Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner manages to recreate the same magic first sparked by her eponymous essay, this time in the form of a full blown novel.

As a rebellious teenager, Michelle distanced herself from her Korean mother and everything she felt she represented. Only after her mother is diagnosed with cancer, she realizes that she is not quite ready to let go. From touring the country with her band she returns to her hometown and becomes her mother's primary caretaker.

The book explores how food can become a way to process feelings, to form and repair relationships and to come to terms with your identity. We travel along to Seoul, Philadelphia, Oregon, New York and Vietnam and stop to eat in between. We tour with an indie rock band and get drunk on soju and beer. Unlike most memoirs, you don't have to already be a fan to enjoy this book, because the writing is so good you will inevitably become one.

Thank you Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for providing me with a complimentary copy!

A memoir about grief, loss and memories. The stories shared tied together by food and shared experiences as the author faces the loss of her mother.

Thank you for sharing! This memoir was very well balanced between stories of Michelle's past, her love of food and her heartbreak. Never did the story start to feel dull because of her well timed shifts between these endearing topics of love for her family and culture. I hope the author continues to write..

Michelle Zauner wrote an essay for the New Yorker in 2018 about her deceased mother, Chongmi. It is a wonderful essay and it convinced me to get a copy of this book for consideration for our County-wide reading program. In the book the author, still raw from her loss, fills the pages with despair. As I continued slowly reading it, I began to see the artist appear from the ashes. When she pursues the recipes her mother had prepared for her, she draws upon the memories of the taste, texture and smell surrounding those times. Those memories of cherished flavors and scents of food extends to the lotions and sunscreens her mother had lining her personal. While the memories comfort, they can also hurt.

One of my favorite parts of this book is the discovery of a trove of childhood photos stashed in the kimchi refrigerator. Zauner understands the depth of her mother’s love for her through them. She especially loves the imperfect images, the pictures taken to complete the roll of film before processing, crooked and with eyes closed. Not long after, the artist emerges in full when her music career is revived through new songs inspired by Chongmi. That success leads to a tour of Asia and reconnection with her family and the food she loves.

Did her mother hold back 10% just for herself? I don’t think so. She left behind a legacy of memories for her daughter, and that seems like 100% love to me.

Thanks to both #netgalley for providing this book for my honest review.

This honestly may be one of the best memoirs I’ve read and Michelle Zauner's writing has left me in a pool of emotion, but mainly hungry and crying. It’s an incredibly moving and beautiful personal story focused on Zauner’s memories of her mother, whom she lost to cancer. Zauner beautifully weaves in and out of growing up between two different cultures and paints a nuanced picture of what her relationship with her Korean mother and family was like while she balances growing up in the United States. And all of these beginnings and endings are celebrated through the lens of food and identity.

I felt a sense of nostalgia and familiarity while reading the memoir, despite knowing next to nothing about Korean food and culture. I think it’s because I found a lot of similarities in the way I watch my mother carefully prepare meals and pepper her with questions about what Indian dish she’s making, walk into Indian grocery stores and feel connected to very specific aspects of my childhood, observe my relatives and people in India cook up feasts and share meals together. I’ve realized that I too used food as a major vehicle to understand what it means to be Indian as a child growing up in the United States my entire life. Food is tantamount to love in Indian culture. It’s not an overstatement to say that this memoir helped deepen my relationship with the half of me that lives on the other side of the ocean and that I can’t look at any of these experiences and blessings in my life the same way again. It’s beautiful to have this new perspective on my life.

All in all, my heart was squeezed to shreds with this one and I seriously cannot recommend this book enough. It will mess with your emotions and while heartbreaking, it’s also incredibly healing and I cannot wait to see what Zauner’s next chapter holds for her.

Crying in H Mart is a heartfelt memoir about the author's relationship to her mother and Korean culture, and an exploration of how the two intersect.

Zauner expands on her 2018 New Yorker essay by the same name, telling a mother-daughter story using food as a lens. I felt that the book was at its strongest when she talked about being a caregiver to her mom and her grief after her loss. The author poignantly describes what cancer can actually be like, as well as her trip to Korea following the death of her mother.

As @cindyheartsbooks remarked, I think I would have preferred this book to have been an essay collection (on the same topics) rather than a memoir. I'm not sure if it's a matter of pacing or editing or what, but the book didn't live up to the expectations I had after having read Zanuer's writing elsewhere. That might be because her essays are really good or because that format works better for me (or both). That having been said, there's a lot I did appreciate about this book, and several friends have loved it, so maybe skip the essays and just dive in? I'd recommend Crying in H Mart to fans of From Scratch or the idea of food as a way of connection in general.

You could argue that taking your indie DIY music project on a multi-country tour with pay is one of the biggest things you could do. But, while that is a huge thing, I think this might be Michelle Zauner's biggest accomplishment so far. This book hit me hard in the gut. I was hungry for so many things while reading: delicious, spicy, brothy foods and a deeper relationship with my own mother. Zauner writes about losing her mother as not one fast, abrupt thing, but as a slow drawn out process that illnesses like cancer drag on. Her grief is palpable and mutli-faceted. She writes of losing her Korean identity, the cultural knowledge that comes only from having a near and dear relative to share history wtih you. I understand that very well. The way we talk so fluidly in our parent's native tongue only to get to a certain point where there isn't so much to say, because we simply don't know how to say more than what we've rehearsed time and time again. It feels as if we are tresspassers to our own cultural identities. We hope to be accepted by the people who share more deeply an identity to our immigrant parent, but fear that we won't ever be.

This is a beautiful book. Michelle, if you read this, I hear you and I see you and I know. I may be Mexican, and not Korean, but I know. Thank you so very much for writing this incredible book.

And to everyone else, yes, I did stay up late finishing it and ended up eating Kimchi at midnight out of the tub, with chopsticks, over the sink in my underwear.

I felt like I was seeing this book EVERYWHERE so I couldn’t wait to pick it up and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Memoirs aren’t always my favorite genre unless it’s someone famous with a little gossip to spill but this one blew me away. I would recommend it again and again.

This memoir by Michelle Zauner, also known as the musical artist Japanese Breakfast, isn't your typical musician's memoir. It talks a little about her music career, but is primarily focused on losing her mother to cancer, her relationship to her Korean heritage, and the food that tied it all together. It's a vulnerable, emotional, and deeply human story of grief and its impact on identity. Food is described in the book as almost its own character, something Zauner turned to for help, for healing, and for her own history. I loved every word.

This book made me want to connect with my mom, someone I haven't had a close relationship with in over a decade. Very powerful to read this going into Mother's Day weekend. A very sad by satisfying ending. The narrator is cathartically emotional and never shies away from showing herself in a bad light. This work of art is a testament to the mother that inspired it.