Yes I am a person who reads at a bar lol. I like it because it keeps people from talking to me and because I might only have a short amount of time there, so I just want to do what I want to do anyway.

I started this book a few weeks ago in very different circumstances. I was at a random library with my son in the middle of a weekday. Him and a couple toddlers (accompanied by their super attentive mothers) started playing so I looked around for a book to read. I grabbed Crying in H Mart because I’ve heard of it and wondered what it was about. I read the first chapter just sitting there. Then I promptly requested it from my school’s library.

Crying in H Mart is about a woman dealing with the death of Michelle Zauner’s mother. Her mom gets cancer while she’s in Philly trying to be an adult after college. She’s in a band and just doing whatever but comes back to Oregon to care for her dying mother. She feeds her and bathes her and everything. She also gets married, travels around, and tries to teach herself how to make Korean food. So she’s crying in H Mart now because it reminds her of her mother.

I loved how close she felt to her mother. Everything she said held weight and mattered. I was definitely living through them with that experience. There are awkward times but they are truly close. She really honors her mother’s life in the story. This was also an easy book to read and keep reading because the writing is full of food and eating and feeling. Finished it in my school’s library sitting there in between classes. Good stuff.

-Rachel

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