Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

Written by Michelle Zauner

Narrated by Michelle Zauner

From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

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.

Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9780593153895

Michelle Zauner

Michelle Zauner is best known as a singer and guitarist who creates dreamy, shoegaze-inspired indie pop under the name Japanese Breakfast. She has won acclaim from major music outlets around the world for releases like Psychopomp and Soft Sounds from Another Planet. Her third album, Jubilee, released in 2021 and has been nominated for two Grammys. Crying in H Mart is her first book.

Reviews for Crying in H Mart

[virgomantiss99 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book allowed me to help build a deeper connection, with my already very close, and very loved mother. The descriptions of food, vendors, and culture, have inspired and captured me in the absolute beauty of Korean culture, as a white American. I thank Michelle zauner, and her music, for helping through my most difficult parts of my life.

[Vinnie Favale · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I just finished the audio book, and I'm at a loss of finding the right adjectives to describe how much I loved this book. As an American who feels an immense connection to the Korean culture and one who also lost a beloved mom, I was reached emotionally on so many levels. I'm in awe of Michelle Zauner and truly cherish her story, which was so beautifully written. Bravo.

[Kelsi Kay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

May be my favorite book I’ve ever read. So much substance and culture in the face of greif. Losing a parent to cancer myself and being a part of the indie rock scene in the early 2000s this all felt so comfortingly familiar.

[jillmey14 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Is this a thing with Everand’s books that there’s skipping with the audiobooks? I thought I was losing my mind

[isabella Davila · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Heartfelt and authentic, it was very special to have michelle herself telling the story, I also loved to connect with the korean culture and appreciate it more

[bookconcierge · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Michelle Zauner’s memoir deals with her grief at losing her mother. More importantly, it deals with the relationship she had with her mother and father growing up, and during her mother’s fatal illness.

She handles some difficult subjects with honesty and grace. There were times when I felt she was being somewhat selfish; for example, when she objected to her mother’s friend taking over some of the caregiving. However, I recognized the range of emotions that come to the forefront when we are confronted with imminent loss of a loved one, particularly our mothers. I felt her grief, and her healing throughout.

I found it touching and heartwarming, and full of love. And I really enjoyed the food references (though I could have used a glossary for easy reference for some of the less familiar terms). I kept thinking about how I make my mother’s recipes now, some of which I’ve had to create on my own, experimenting until I get just the right flavor (or close to what I remember my mother’s dish tasted like).

I was surprised that many of the women in my book club were not fans. For them, the “Koreaness” of Zauner’s story put them off. They seemed unable to recognize the universal truths of mother/daughter relationships and of how food expresses love throughout our lives.

[froxgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This terribly sad memoir of a Korean-American mom and (peripherally) an American dad, and their daughter is filled with anguish: constant expectations of perfection from a judgmental mother; rebellion from a daughter who sees herself as an iconoclast; and the absence of an alcoholic father. Michelle can never reach her mother's high Korean standards of beauty, dress, and comportment. She never finds her niche in school or at work until she persuades her parents to buy her a cheap guitar, and then her mom barely acknowledges her talent and regrets paying for music lessons. But there is a bad gene on her mother's side, and soon after her mother's sister in Korea dies of colon cancer, Michelle's mother is diagnosed, and all of Michelle's resentment and rebellion disappears as she reckons with the effects of her mother's illness and the knowledge that her absence will be overwhelming. Michelle immerses herself in learning Korean cooking, in memories of the joy of spending half her childhood in Korea, and then on her music and her husband. It came as a pleasant surprise that Michelle is the lead singer of the band Japanese Breakfast, which apparently everyone knew but me, and which must have driven the sales of this popular book and audio. Michelle's reading makes the words ring out with truth and pain.

[sanyamakadi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There seems to be a plethora of content lately about intergenerational trauma, particularly between mothers and daughters. It's an important topic, but it's exhausting and painful to continually be exposed to it. For that reason I wasn't sure I was a fan of this book. But I was eventually won over by the glorious discussion of Korean food, and am already planning what to eat and to make next.

[kakadoo202 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Being between two cultures is hard.
Losing your mom even harder.

[norabelle414 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pop singer Michelle Zauner describes in detail the process and feeling of her mother’s cancer diagnosis, treatment, and eventual death and the couple years after. She mostly relates to her emotions about her mother using food - the food her mom used to cook for her, the food she tried (and failed) to cook for her mom while she was sick, and the food that now reminds her of her mother (and makes her cry in the middle of H Mart).

A very intimate and touching book, though fortunately for me not about anything I have first-hand experience with. The process-y-ness of the story and the detail Zauner goes into felt very cathartic. She’s an excellent writer and I hope she writes more. She was also a fantastic narrator, and I definitely recommend the audiobook.

[cmbohn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow, this put me through the wringer. So much raw emotion, so much intense grief. It brought up so many complicated feelings about my own parents deaths. Definitely recommended, but if you have lost someone, it will rip your heart out all over again.

[smashbasile · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“Save your tears for when your mother dies.”

I'm having trouble forming whole sentences about this book. So many words come to me.

Intimate. This memoir feels exceptionally private and personal, even though I felt connected to it. Mothers are inherently your own, while also being something most everyone feels emotionally connected about.
Poignant. The sadness and pain just exudes from the pages and the words. I cried too many times to count.
Hard. There are many passages that are hard to listen to. It's hard for me to imagine losing my mother, whom I consider my best friend.
Evocative. Many times I felt like I was with her in her memories. Browsing an aisle, or cooking in her kitchen.

Overall, this was a wonderful and painful memoir, and I feel both empty and whole after finishing it.

[quirkylibrarian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Michelle processes the death of her mother, reckoning with a sometimes complicated and difficult relationship. Unapologetically acknowledging her own shortcomings, she starts to face her future without her mother. I’d give this to book groups and fans if Elizabeth Berg.

[spounds_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Memoir about a woman and her Korean mother told in the context of food and cooking. Good!

[shedsy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I cried. I cried so damn much. I just found out that H-Mart is opening up in my city and I will go there and cry too

[daumari · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I do and I don't want to recommend this to my own mother, partly because we've butt heads in the past so I think she'd recognize some of the similar, "I'm showing my love for you by wanting you to do better" things, but also she's got a sense of her mortality and I don't think she'd take kindly to me sending her a memoir about when a daughter's mother is dying.

Michelle Zauner writes a bluntly emotional memoir, on how it feels when the person you thought you'd have for decades more suddenly starts to fade, and the process of working through that grief even while the person is still alive. Her hometown of Eugene is not far from where I am (I actually go on a weekly basis), so that helped with visualizing some of the places described for where teenage!Michelle went to see shows, or the drive up Spencer's Butte to the family home, or her nightmares about being a car driving off the Ferry Street Bridge. A lot of her bond with her mom is over food, and that's a universal love that can lead to, well, crying in H Mart. Or Sunshine Market, as it were.

Listen to Psychopomp for the final third!

Reread 2022 for book club~

[greeniezona · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had no idea who Zauner was before picking up this book, but between the great title, the effective marketing campaign, and my interest in Korean-American immigration stories, I just couldn't wait for this to come out in paperback.

This is a memoir that feels incredibly personal and still raw. You're not going to get a lot of distance for analysis here. Zauner is in her feelings this whole book, which is kind of amazing. This is a book about feeling like an outsider. About mixed-race identity. About mothers and daughters who don't "speak the same love language" and the misunderstandings that causes. It's about cancer, and about being robbed of the time you might have had to learn to love each other better, to learn each other's stories, to pass on culture and food.

And yes, it's about food. As caretaking. About learning to cook your culture's food without someone to teach it to you — just sheer force of will and the internet.

Zauner's writing is so personal some may feel excluded, but for me it wrapped all the way around and I saw myself in her so many times — even in moments where our identities/experiences had only the tiniest overlap.

I loved this even more than I expected.

[cecrow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm late in discovering Japanese Breakfast's music, and reading Michelle Zauner's memoir is a part of my catching up. It layers well with other reading I've done on the immigrant experience and on death, meshing the two together with some interesting background on Michelle's early experience in the music scene and how she got her start. The experience of her mother's long decline from cancer and eventual death is unstintingly portrayed, every curtain pulled back. It could be an uncomfortable revisit for anyone who's experienced the death of a parent from illness, but perhaps a helpful charting of the course for those who will face it in future. The level of emotion these chapters generate is very high, and they could not have been easy to relive in the writing.

I've not encountered this much food since reading the Redwall series to my kids, and I'm not nearly so courageous about sampling unfamiliar dishes, but it's still an engaging story about how food formed the primary bond between herself and her mother, as well as to her cultural identity, and how it provided a path to healing. I wasn't expecting such a wonderful writing style: the descriptions, the perfect pacing, the careful incorporation of flashbacks and the right degree of detail last throughout. I looked in vain for a coauthor who assisted her, and it explains why she's writing the screenplay. There's a second career waiting for her if the whole music thing doesn't pan out.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Zauner writes about her relationship with her mother and her mother's diagnosis and death from cancer. Korean food and culture permeate this book as Zauner's mother tries to teach her half-Korean daughter all she can about her Korean roots.

[decaturmamaof2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Vivid and moving.

[milliehennessy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'll admit it - I did not expect this book to be so depressing. I know the synopsis mentions her mother's terminal cancer diagnosis, but that event and those that followed are really the core of the book. Even in looking back at her childhood, all experiences seem linked to her relationship with her mother, and her struggles to come to terms with the fact that their relationship will come to an end sooner than any of them suspected. So yeah, of course that's all very heavy and depressing. But the way Michelle writes about her childhood, her relationship, her mother's experience with cancer is just so personal and forthcoming that it made the story more painful to read. I almost felt like someone I know was telling me about their experience.

There are some funny moments and plenty of talk of food and music, but if you're already feeling down, be warned; this is not a light read. Despite that, I flew through it, mostly in one sitting. Even though the content is heavy, Michelle's tone is engaging. If it matters, I've only heard one song of hers and that was after I'd already purchased the book - so you don't need any prior knowledge of her music career to connect with her story. It probably deepens it if you do, however - I know my partner is more familiar with her work and mentioned that some of her songs deal with her mother.

Anyway, if you're into memoirs, whether or not you're familiar with the person writing it, I definitely suggest this one.

[mcelhra · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Crying in H Mart is Michelle Zauner, of the band Japanese Breakfast’s memoir of growing up Korean American in the very white town of Eugene, Oregon. After she struggled with being one of just a few Asian kids in her schools growing up, she moved to the East Coast for college, where she met her husband. When her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she moved back home to take care of her.

First a warning: Do not read this book while hungry. In Michelle’s family, food equals love so there are a lot of vivid descriptions of tasty food. When Michelle moves back home to take care of her dying mother, food becomes even more important. As her mother declines, it’s harder and harder for her to eat. Michelle cooks all sorts of things trying to find something her mother finds appetizing.

Crying in H Mart was heartbreaking, as one would expect. The writing flows like a novel even though it’s a memoir. It’s the story of family love and identity. Michelle reads it herself, which made me even more invested in her life. Highly recommended.

[cassidybolton · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3 stars
i rarely read nonfiction and i think that influenced my reading because i kept waiting for something more interesting to happen forgetting that this is someone’s actual story. enjoyed the writing style and structure!! loved getting to feel connected with someone i have very little in common with

characters: 3
plot: 1
writing: 5
(feels wrong scoring characters/plot for a memoir but oh well)

[carolfoisset · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really liked her writing, but I'm not a foodie so some of the longer food sections did not keep my interest.
Did enjoy the mother/daughter relationship aspect and the OR connections since I live in OR and my kids grew up in a locale similar to her house.

[rickgeissal · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is a memoir of a Korean-American woman with large amounts of discussion of Korean food - foods she loved earlier in life, foods she made haltingly, foods her mother made at particular times - such as each time she returned to visit her mother - food she learned to cook as an adult - what the ingredients are for these foods, and some about how to buy them in the U.S., and some foods she only had on her visits to Korea. Another large - and to me "poignant" part of the book was about the diagnosis of her mother's illness, the author's efforts at being present for her mother during that illness and the long, difficult treatment regimen, and her mother's ultimate death from the disease. Her description of the illness and death of her mother was, for me, quite moving.

There were also some parts about the author's efforts to make it in music (which she did after years of trying with her band), about her meeting and developing of a relationship with the man she married during the latter stages of her mother's illness, and about her life after her mother's death.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fantastic look at life, grief, growing up in Eugene, Oregon, with a Korean mother and white American father, food, family, language, and forging a creative career (music).

I did not read this when everyone was, as I usually find popular books disappointing. When I found this on my library's new Libby audio available now list--and saw that Zauner read it herself--I immediately checked it out. And it was great. I loved the combination of food, culture, family, and dreams.

Excellent.

[foggidawn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This memoir is a touching exploration of grief and culture. It touches on the author's childhood experiences with a Korean mother and an American father, then takes an in-depth look at the period when her mother is diagnosed with cancer and Michelle returns home to Oregon to care for her during her final months. Michelle hopes to learn how to cook some traditional Korean dishes for her mother, but the chemotherapy causes her mother to reject all but the mildest foods. After her mother is gone, learning to cook these dishes helps Michelle feel reconnected to her Korean heritage.

This book is guaranteed to make you hungry. It will also make you cry. Best read with a box of tissues and a supply of Korean snack foods close at hand.

[debbie13410 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The author remembers her mother through Korean dishes. Sad but sweet.

[gpangel_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner is a 2021 Knopf publication.

This is a heartbreaking memoir, and bittersweet in the way Michelle comes to terms with her mother’s diagnosis, death, and the aftermath of losing a parent.

As the reality of the seriousness of her mother’s illness begin to sink in, and her harrowing treatments begin, Michelle makes the comforting connection in the way her mother expressed her love through food.

This book is a ‘grief’ book in many ways. It was probably a cathartic exercise for Michelle, a way to write out all her feelings and work out her complex emotions after having watched her mother suffer through a harrowing battle with cancer.

But this book was also a reckoning, a new appreciation for her heritage, a realization of how much her mother cared for her, how she now hopes to proudly embrace her Korean roots, for herself, and others in her life.

The book is naturally sobering and melancholy, dealing with uncomfortable topics, but it is also an inspiring passage of self-discovery leading to a sort of peace within Michelle in the wake of tragedy.

Overall, this book, for me, was illuminating. I loved learning all about the Korean dishes Michelle cooked, about the traditions her mother tried to instill in her.

Though food plays a huge part in this voyage, I also felt Michelle’s music played a therapeutic role in how she coped with stress and was a conduit of release for her, as well.

I hope Michelle finds true peace from the spirituality she currently shuns, but as for now, I found Michelle’s voice to be real, raw, human, and open, and I applaud her courage in sharing her story with us.

[capewood · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

2023 book #5. 2022. I wouldn't have thought that a memoir written by someone younger than my children would be interesting but I was wrong. The book is very heartwarming and heart breaking told by Michelle Zauner, aka Japanese Breakfast. Read for my book club.