Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner is one of those books that stays with you long after you finish. I picked it up thinking it would be a thoughtful memoir, but I wasn’t prepared for how deeply it relates to me. I could relate to her story so much that it was so moving to read her story so recent to the death in mine.
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.
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.
Now, as I said before, my story can closely relate to hers.
I just lost my grandpa to a battle with cancer about a month ago. When Michelle
wrote about the progress of her mother’s death, it was so real. It was just as
I had experienced my grandpa’s. I think it was fate for me to read this book
when I did. I have had it on my reading list since my junior year of high
school and it was now that I decided to read it.
For Michelle, it wasn't just so much about losing her mother
as it was about her heritage. She lost a part of herself but also started to
realize how distant she was to the culture that had raised her. This memoir was
really scattered throughout various parts of her life.
Overall, this memoir was written very well. It was not the
best memoir I have ever read, but it was for sure the first one I could relate
to the closest. Our culture is a part of us, no matter how big or small that
culture may be. It is important for us to remember our roots and to thrive with
respect to them.
This makes me want to read Crying in H Mart—it sounds really moving!
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