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READ VIA: Libby audio ABOUT: Michelle Zauer’s memoir is a candid, grief-filled reflection of the author’s complex relationship with her mother, the pain surrounding that relationship exacerbated by her caregiving experience at the end of her mother’s life, her struggle to feel whole in her half-Korean identity, and an ode to the ability of food to invoke memories and connection. MY THOUGHTS: I don’t like to critique memoirs as I feel each person is entitled to present their life through their own terms and story. However, my best beef with this book is that it could’ve been left as an essay. Instead, we witness numerous descriptions of her unresolved feelings about how she struggled to be the “correct type of daughter.” This transactional nature of love was grading to read. You did not fail, Michelle. You were emotionally manipulated. The more this book progressed, the more I felt Michelle was seemingly trying to justify to the reader her mother‘s love and why she was still grief-stricken over her mom. I did not need seven hours of audio to accept that a child wants to love and mourn their imperfect mother. The caregiving portions of this book were difficult to read, both in the sense that they depicted the harsh, unglamorous nature of dying and that Michelle captured the immensity of feelings (guilt, regret, anger) that come with losing a family member with rich and heart-wrenching depictions. On a more positive note, the portions of this memoir relating to food were fantastic. Her desire to associate with her Korean self via food was fully fleshed out, and her experience learning new recipes was the healing I desperately wished for her the entire book. I was both literally and figuratively hungry for more. Further, the portions of the book relating to her identity as neither fully American nor fully Korean were extremely compelling. Her writing was raw, honest, and thoughtful as she struggled not just to communicate but also to find her place among her Korean family, mainly as she explored navigating those feelings after her mother’s death. This might be a me issue, but when I read a memoir, I want to see the author reflect on their story. I just felt the author was too deep in her feelings to provide any examination. I learned about many new Korean foods and enjoyed the descriptive nature of the writing, so I felt compelled to finish the narrative. But overall, I was underwhelmed with this highly hyped memoir. AUDIO: The audio is exceedingly well done. I love how Michelle characterized her friends and aunts, and the Korean pronunciation of the many foods in this book. SIMILAR BOOKS: I don’t have any similar recs. I’m sure there’s a memoir about complex mother-daughter relationships, but I haven’t read it ( and probably won’t). SHOULD YOU READ This memoir will resonate with many people; I was not one of them. If you have an interest in her book, I would recommend her essay in The New Yorker and see this book as an expansion of that work