Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
What can I say that will encapsulate all of my feelings about this book. Wow. Amazing. Sad. Beautiful. Tears. Raw. Emotional. Love.
This book means so much more than words will ever begin to describe. It's raw emotional magnitude is one not for the unsympathetic or those lacking emotional availability. Because damn does this make you feel. Whether you've lost someone before, you feel what it's like to lose someone first hand through Michelle Zauner. Personally, it made me reflect on what it would be like to lose my mom and it hit me like an eighteen wheeler going 90 miles an hour. That shit hurts.
“It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people, those who had felt pain and those who had yet to.” ― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart
I sympathize for Michelle and I feel like she shared a part of her story that was so personal that I need to go out and buy her a really, nice, high quality Korean meal (I would cook it, if I wouldn't butcher it or knew of the cultural impactfulness). I think this made me realize why I love memoirs so much; it's someone pouring their heart out (most of the time), telling their stories about life. I love the recollection of experiences that are shared in books like that.
“Even then I must have known that no one would ever love me as much as she would.”― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart
The audiobook for this is a must in my personal opinion. Zauner narrates it herself and it brings the reader even that much closer to her. It almost feels as you are intruding, as a fly on the wall, to her life in an uncomfortable way but I don't think this hurts the book, it helps it. I can't repeat enough that this is what makes the book emotionally raw. The things Michelle did while her mother was sick, how she reflected on her teenage years and her relationship with her mother during that time, how she had remorse, how there was never enough time.
“For the rest of my life there would be a splinter in my being, stinging from the moment my mother died until it was buried with me.”― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart
I'm so glad this was my first read of 2022. I hope this is a step in the right direction in terms of the quality of my reading year. I would love to read many more books that are as good as this one. And if you haven't or weren't planning to, pick this book up!