WHEN MICHELLE ZAUNER, the indie rock musician known as Japanese Breakfast, was in her mid-twenties, working as a waitress and struggling to launch her music career in Philadelphia, she got a call that her mother was ill. She put her life on hold and flew home to Eugene, Oregon, to be with her mother through the final, excruciating months of her battle with cancer.
This is Zauner's searingly candid coming-of-age story: growing apart from, and then back together with, her Korean identity and of forging her own path in the wake of a devastating loss. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up Asian American, straining to meet her mother's expectations, moving across the country, and returning home to reckon with grief. And through it all, she savors the unexpected solace of weekly trips to her favorite Asian grocery store. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Crying in H Mart is an unflinching, powerful story of family, food, grief, and love.
Staff Choice: Else
Beautiful memoir about being stuck between two cultures, losing your mother, and finding the connection again in food.
