#note/sourcereview/book | #on/memoir ## What is the book about? Michelle Zauner pulls the reader through her mid-twenties as she internally battles her Korean identity while supporting her mother through a fatal cancer diagnosis. The prose is skilled and the story is detailed, peppered with korean text and Korean food. She simultaneously rejects her Korean heritage and then embraces it through her relationship with her mother, the language, and her food. She deeply and transparently reflects and remembers, joining the reader in the painful recollection of her teenage parental rejection. She finds pieces of her emerging as she tries to connect to her mother during Ummi's dying process. >"Unlike the second languages I attempted to learn in high school, there are Korean words that I inherently understand without ever having learned their definition. There was no momentary translation that mediates the transition from one language to another. Parts of Korean just exist, somewhere as a part of my psyche-words and view with their pure meaning, not their English substitutes." p.197 Her entire story ends with her effort to give up the artist side in exchange for a "real job," which counterintuitively results in her getting an explosive career fronting her band [Japanese Breakfast](https://japanesebreakfast.rocks). ## What else do I wonder about? How is it that at times when we stop trying, we become successful? How does [[🐓 Idea Farm/6 Long Form Sources/Trying Not To Try|Trying Not To Try]] play a role? ## Action Be there for family when they need it! Just show up ## When do I want to stumble across this? #on/dying | #on/family | #on/heritage ## Source: Zauner, M. (2023). _Crying in H Mart: A memoir_ (First Vintage Books edition). Vintage Books.