BOOK OF THE MONTH

Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American—“in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR).

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256 pages

Average rating: 7.59

1,879 RATINGS

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74 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

Anonymous
Jan 11, 2025
8/10 stars
i listened to this on a plane ride, which was an interesting decision as it honestly made me shed a tear more than once. this book was first recommended to me as a great book about the asian american experience. then someone else mentioned that the author is the japanese breakfast person, so i was thinking even more that i should read this. however, i just hadn’t gotten around to it until i had 20 hours to kill.

did it live up to the hype? i think: not quite. i just heard this book being recommended absolutely everywhere, and it didn’t blow me away. that being said i really enjoyed that exploration of the authors relationship with her mom. it was so complicated, and i felt like that came through without making me feel like the mother was totally wicked or should be totally forgiven. i thought this book was going to be more broadly applicable to the asian american experience rather than more memoir-like. so i guess i was just a bit disappointed because i expected to relate to it even more. that being said, that’s a flaw of me, not the book, and i did think the book was written pretty beautifully.

i also kept falling asleep and having to go back like three chapters so this review is sponsored by soundcore. somehow my headphones just kept going every time i fell asleep and left them on. like i used them for hours and hours and it was totally fine!

rating: 4 stars
Lisa P
Jan 10, 2025
10/10 stars
“Save your tears for when your mother dies.”

Wow. Just…wow. This book has been on my TBR list for a while but consuming it now, just a month after losing my dad, made it all the more beautiful, sad, and poignant. Very well-written, and so relatable, not only in regards to caring for an ill parent and dealing with their passing, but also how important food is to one’s culture, relationships, and memories. **Highly recommend the audiobook which is read by the author ❤️‍
Anonymous
Jan 08, 2025
8/10 stars
Beautiful, heart-wrenching story about love and loss.
Anonymous
Jan 07, 2025
8/10 stars
The connection of food and love in Asian families is something that Zauner describes beautifully. My husband is Chinese American and I hope to one day give our child the vibrant memories of food that Zauner describes (hopefully with a little less internal conflict over their identity, but we'll have to see). She expresses herself very clearly and I'm not usually super into memoirs, but I would read more about her life if it's directly described by her.
PackSunshine
Jan 05, 2025
4/10 stars
I only finished it because I was reading it for a book club. I get why she wrote it - I write for my own therapy also. But it didn't grab me like I wished it would. Having gone through a lot of similar emotions about my own mother's death from cancer and also with some complicated feelings about. my dad's death, I was hoping for something more moving. It just didn't touch me. Also, I kind of felt bad for Peter, with the whole "marry me now so that my mom can be there."

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