Off the Shelf: Crying in Hmart

Summary: 

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.

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This book is a powerful memoir that tackles a range of complex and emotionally charged topics. Zauner shares he challenges of navigating life as a 1st generation Korean-American who thought her biggest struggle in life would only be figuring out her identity as a daughter of an immigrant mother and an only child feeling like she couldn’t succeed her parents expectations. But trying to find her identity within culture and traditions wouldn’t be her biggest struggle, or coping with a seemingly failing relationship with her parents as the distance between them grew more and more. When her mother is diagnosed with only a short time left, Zauner’s life is thrown in a complete 180 as she is left to deal with the grief of what will come while rekindling a relationship between mother and daughter that is stronger and more intimate than the one they had before. 

There were so many emotions out into this book. You could feel the pain as you watch a daughter try to pretend the world was ok and the early loss of her mother wouldn’t come. You witnessed Zauner frantically try to make sure her mom experienced those “one in a lifetime” memories before her time ran out, and struggle to keep her life together as her family fell apart. 

One of the things that touched me the most was the actions of her now husband and the way he treated her before they married. You see the selfless love of a man as he supports her in her dreams, and comforts her during her sorrows–driving hours after a night shift to hold her when she found the news. He was there for her when she needed him, even when she said this is too much you can walk away but he didn’t. 

This book is full of raw emotion. You will connect to those nostalgic moments in one of her memories, imagine “what if” and resonate with her writing on many fronts. This is a memoir that is real and a reminder to treasure the time you have with others by living each day to the fullest

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Notes: 

Memoir 

Identity crisis 

Cancer

Korean-American

Mother-daughter relationship 

Grief 

Goodreads: Crying in H Mart

Author Website: http://michellezauner.com

*The cover in most places I've seen have been the red one, but I think the orange one fits better