“Food was how my mother expressed her love. No matter how critical or cruel she could seem—constantly pushing me to meet her intractable expectations—I could always feel her affection radiating from the lunches she packed and the meals she prepared for me just the way I liked them.” – 4.25/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: bands, teenage years, comfort food, memories, healing, terminal cancer, identity and grief.

A memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

Michelle Zauner tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band—and meeting the man who would become her husband—her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Wow, I loved this book! It was an emotional rollercoaster from beginning to end – and yes, I cried multiple times while reading this!

This book deserves all the hype. I personally had no idea who Michelle Zauner was, but her band “Japanese Breakfast” definitely sounded familiar! I’m glad she got out of her comfort zone and decided to write this book to share her story.

In essence this is mostly a memoir book, but the focus is the relationship between her and her mother. They had a very hard time connecting especially when she was a teenager, and she had a lot of resentment towards her mother. But when her mother got sick with terminal cancer, they became close and she was determined to heal their relationship. What Michelle realized later is that her mother showed her love through tough love, and she now appreciates what her mother did for her, the moments they shared and the lessons she taught her.

But this is not a book just about her and her mother. She also talks about her struggles with identity growing up. She felt like she didn’t fit in in America for being half-Korean, but also didn’t fit in South Korea because she is half-American. In this book, she shows us how she came to terms with her identity and got close to her Korean heritage and culture.

It’s a very honest and personal book, and I feel like it is a love letter to her mother. It made me emotional, but I’m very glad I read it. Definitely recommend this one!