Crying in H Mart

This memoir very much reads as the author trying to work through and process their own feelings about everything that's transpired and what it means for them to be Korean at this stage in their life. Because of that is has a raw authenticity to it that given the reviews obviously resonates with a large number of people.

The book doesn't work for me though based on my own feelings towards how I was raised. It's very hard for me to see lines like “there was no one in the world that was ever as critical or could make me feel as hideous as my mother, but there was no one not even Peter, who ever made me feel as beautiful” and chalk that up as being overly devoted or “small criticisms”.   That to me crosses the line of devotion and if criticism tears you down to that degree, then is it actually small? This and many other examples just spoke to me in an incredibly negative way that was always in the back of my mind, through all the heartwarming moments and the bittersweet.