Guest review by Janelle Bailey, retired Literature teacher.

Where to even begin with a review of a book that right now feels it may be one of the very best I have ever, ever read? I shall qualify and temper this enthusiastic response just a tad with the possibility that this book pushes all of “my” good reading/writing buttons appropriately, producing “all the feels” in me, personally, and engaging me in the layered satisfaction of reading expectations/standards/agreeable reader response experience and may not do the exact same thing to/for everyone who picks it up.

I must also mention that any time a book cover already says anything like this one’s “New York Times Best Seller,” on it before I read it, that tends to actually deter–at the very least delay–my reading of it rather than promote it. My picky reader tendency is to prefer books of literary rather than commercial merit, and such a mark on the cover often moves books for me to the back burner rather than the top of the TBR. This one has been around for a while, having been published in 2021, and I have looked into it a number of times.

It just kept popping up–often, recently–such that I became further intrigued. Thus I boldly suggested it as our May book club read. Truly I cannot wait to hear, later this week, what the others thought of it. I expect to not be alone in my fondness for it but also expect to learn that a few to some did not care for it much or at all. I know we have at least one member who, absolutely a reader, somehow manages to simply not “do memoirs.” So I am eager to learn whether she read it. And I relish the opportunity to discuss the book again in June and hopefully over a meal of great Korean food with some other friends who have read it, too.

Not since reading Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance many years ago have I been so compelled to research and then make/eat the food described in the book. Way back then, prepared to finish reading A Fine Balance during spring break, I had to interrupt myself and stop reading before I finished the book, and find my old Indian cookbook (brought home from and saved since my London residency) and then make from scratch all of the spice mixes, and a big batch of curry, and then sooooo much food that my daughters still completely recall this “crazy” time when I cooked up “allllllll kinds of Indian food” (that nobody but me really enjoyed eating). I needed to be eating good Indian food while I finished the last many pages of that book.

Both that book and this one simply grabbed me with all of the food! They both prompted me to just wish to move into and fully partake of all of the food imagery shared, anticipating that it would take me even deeper into the story and experience. With Crying in H Mart, though, I simply devoured the book, yet while doing so created a list of all of the Korean foods I wish to research and try. Many are just referenced by Korean names, like “gyeranjjim,” “kongguksu,” “nurungi,” and “yaksik” while others are described and even their recipes or ingredients, at least, referenced; it’s the “gyeranjjim” that intrigues me most, “a steamed, savory egg custard.” There is also music I want to listen to because of Zauner and her story. If I were still teaching my own students, I would absolutely excerpt a section or a few for analysis and discussion of writing craft. This is simply a wonderfully written book.

Whenever I finish a good to great book, I am a bit bummed as I reach its end, knowing that it will be really tough to find anything satisfying to “read next,” as well as not wanting my time with this one to end. Oddly with this particular book–and I have never ever done this before–I found myself, during the last 50 to 100 pages, going back a few pages when I’d pick it back up, overlapping and re-reading pages and parts to savor some of it again and slow it down rather than race to the end. This is one of the best books and for certain one of the very best memoirs I have ever read…ever.

Michelle Zauner pulls off the supreme trifecta for me! With most books I am simply looking for the already challenging satisfaction of two things: good and believable story along with good to great writing. But because this is a memoir, there’s an added layer of personal expectation that the now “true” story also be some valuably appropriate mix of gained strength and humility of life and experience by this real person–not a character but a real person telling their truth. I’m very demanding, I realize, but I have no desire to read a full-length book about a person whose life was so filled with privilege that they are clueless to how differently many, many live, or a story building to egotistical, narcissistic arrogance its subject; nor do I wish to read about someone’s woe-is-me for 300 pages. I’m looking for something I can learn from, the story of someone who has lived their best life and figured out some things so that I can process my own stuff simultaneously and learn from them, that reading the book helps me to better understand someone else’s story as well as think about and process my own and hopefully gain something therapeutic–my kind of therapy: bibliotherapy– while doing so.

It is a rare memoir, I think, that tells the truth but in such a way that readers comes to engage with the story in valuable, relatable, reader response sorts of ways. I believe I have some idea of the things that Zauner did here to draw me in–creating rich imagery of food experiences, for instance–but I also came to wish her to be my neighbor, my writing mentor, my new friend while reading her book, for all of the rawness she shared and with which I connected, for how vulnerably she openly shared her experiences.

Writing about mothers and daughters and their relationships is something I think about every single day. Zauner tells the story of her own complex relationship with her parents, and it all comes through as honest and sincere, inclusive of the joy and challenges and intricate complexities that parent-child relationships tend to contain. As so many do and have before her, Zauner, too, writes and shares these stories only after her mother has died. This allows her to speak of some things and/or speak in ways that she might not have otherwise…but also requires her to express some regrets and wishes she could/would have known things, understood certain things, maybe even said or done certain things sooner. May all learn valuable lessons from and gain something from reading this book. I certainly did.

NOTE: our local library has “book club copies” of this book available, meaning that you can arrange to reserve and borrow enough copies of the book for your entire book club to read together. What a cool thing! Check to see if your library does, too!