tl;dr raw, honest, real, impactful memoir about [asian american] identity & grief
Premise
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. 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.
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.
Rating
5/5 stars
Review
“she was my champion, she was my archive. she had taken the utmost care to preserve the evidence of my existence and growth, capturing me in images, saving all my documents and possessions. she had all knowledge of my being memorized.
now that she was gone, there was no one left to ask about these things. the knowledge left unrecorded died with her. what remained were documents and my memories, and now it was up to me to make sense of myself, aided by the signs she left behind.”
currently crying, but in my room -- not h mart.
i'm undeniably drawn to stories about asian-american identity. that's what initially drew me to this book, that chance for me to connect to someone's experience and see myself [an asian-american, if we weren't clear] through the new perspective they've given me. i seek familiarity and comfort within the pages of a book. i grew up familiar with the walls of asian grocery stores like h mart. i thought this book would feel familiar.
what i didn't realize was how this story centers grief -- plain-spoken, messy, quiet and loud at the same time. the focus on rebuilding your identity through the lens of your grief. what i didn't realize was how much that would affect me.
i anticipated resonating deeply with the sections on asian-american identity, but it surprised me how much the rest of the narrative sunk in even more. for the first half of this book, i told myself to hold on. i tried to read as fast as i could and just get through it, because i found that reading slow and absorbing this information and emotion all at once hit a part of hurt that i wasn't ready to reckon with.
after the halfway point, i couldn't help but devour this story. i read fast because i couldn't help it. but i still hurt. a lot. again, i didn't realize how much this book's theme of grief would truly hit me. punch me in the gut. but it did, and i'm glad it did, but i just sat there, in my room, feeling this wave of loss and becoming completely overwhelmed by it.
this book is honest and intimate and unflinching. food is intrinsically linked with culture, is intrinsically linked with memories, is intrinsically linked with people, and this book shows that. through the good, the bad, the unforgettably, life-alteringly ugly.
a book i entirely expected to give 5 stars and a narrative that brings a monumental shift to my perspective.
michelle zauner/japanese breakfast released a cover of "nobody sees me like you do" this morning so please excuse me as i go cry while listening to that
Other Info
Memoir
16+
CW: illness, grief, loss
Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Crying-Mart-Memoir-Michelle-Zauner/dp/0525657746
Would I Recommend?
Yes, but make sure you check content warnings first.