Reviewing Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

After reading Emmie's review of Crying in H Mart, I was really intrigued and wanted to read the book for myself. To me, it was the perfect combination of a sad story and connection to the popular Korean market that I loved called H Mart. Emmie was certainly correct, this book was truly so well written and has easily placed in my top 3 books.


"For 엄마," Zauner starts the book with "For Mom," which is such a great way to start the memoir. She walks the readers through her and her mom's relationship from high school all the way until college and how they didn't maintain a great relationship with each other. Describing all the times she felt like she didn't feel like she belonged anywhere due to her Korean and Caucasian identity. Before Zauner received the devastating news of her mother's terminal pancreatic cancer, she was distant from her family but that quickly changed. After hearing the news, Zauner returned to her family in Oregon to spend time with her mom. Fighting cancer with her mom was calamitous because her aunt, Eunmi, had died due to colon cancer after a long 24 chemo treatments.


Zauner and her mom, Chongmi, even though they were distant before, they bonded over their Korean culture. Walking through H Mart was devastating for Zauner as she looked for the brands and types of food only the true Korean woman know to buy. She worried about losing her Korean culture after her mom would pass away. All of the traditional dishes that Chongmi didn't get to teach her how to make yet.
The mother and daughter bonded through cooking as Zauner often cooked for her sick mom. Although Chongmi's condition did not show any improvement, the family took a trip to Seoul together wanting to "escape" the reality. This went against the doctor's suggestions but they took the trip anyways. Unfortunately, Chongmi got sick and was not able to even get out of the hospital bed.


After being released from the hospital in Seoul, they returned to Oregon and received more bad news. The chemotherapy had not shown any shrinking of the tumor. This meant that her mom would not be able to recover. Even though Chongmi could've recovered with more chemotherapies, the chance was so slim and her poor condition was hard to watch as she was suffering deeply day by day. She became less and less talkative and had to be in bed full time. She suddenly passed on a night when her dad woke her up to see Chongmi before morticians came and prepared her for cremation.


I cried throughout this entire book. Many descriptive scenes of her mom's pain and suffering brought me to absolute sadness. I could not wrap my head around how tragic it must've been for Zauner. I often thought of my own mother when I read this book. There are scenes in the book that reminded me and my mother and how we argued and bickered because we didn't realize that it would be a luxury. The thought of losing my mom really did not feel "real" to me. It seemed so far. Walking through the grocery store together and bargaining on the simplest things like green onion prices just really touched me personally because that's something that my mom and I did too. Everything in this book connected to me due to the fact that Zauner and I's backgrounds were similar. We both had two different cultures engraved into our souls and were trying to embrace both of them without forgetting about one of them. I really really enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to anyone who's looking forward to reading an incredibly written memoir about food and overcoming the loss of a loved one.


The sadness is still stuck with me as I write this review and I did tear up when relating back to the onions. It truly represented most Asian moms.


I hope you enjoyed my review!
Helen