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Crying in H Mart

The No. 1 New York Times bestselling memoir from indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast

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Crying in H Mart

By: Michelle Zauner
Narrated by: Michelle Zauner
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About this listen

Read by the author, Michelle Zauner, lead vocalist of Japanese Breakfast.

'A story that is both beautiful and heartbreaking; it is as raw as it is precious. I bawled my eyes out, but I also loved it and I hope you do too.' – Dua Lipa

From the indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, an unflinching, deeply moving memoir about growing up mixed-race, Korean food, losing her Korean mother, and forging her own identity.

'Incredible . . . It absolutely wrecked me . . . So, so emotional' – Natalie Portman

'Crying In H Mart destroyed me . . . It’s fantastic.' – Olivia Rodrigo

'As good as everyone says it is and, yes, it will have you in tears. An essential read for anybody who has lost a loved one, as well as those who haven't' – Marie Claire

In this story of family and food, grief and joy, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school; of struggling with her mother’s 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, 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 pancreatic 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.

Vivacious and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as alive as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes, Crying in H Mart is an audiobook to cherish and share.

What readers are saying about Crying in H Mart:
'I recommend this for anyone who likes memoirs, food, and who’s ever felt lonely.' (Five Stars)
'I was captivated by this coming-of-age story which resonated with mine and other friends' stories.' (Five Stars)
'A must for people looking to be hooked in memories that span between joy, sadness and love.' (Five Stars)

*Crying in H Mart was a #1 New York Times bestseller w/c 17.04.2023

 Asian American Studies Entertainment & Celebrities Grief & Loss Indigenous Creators Mental Health Awareness Personal Development Relationships Social Sciences Specific Demographics Heartfelt

Critic Reviews

Extraordinary . . . This is a book about loss that is also about love; it’s a book about South Korea that is also about West Coast small town America; it’s a story that is both beautiful and heartbreaking; it is as raw as it is precious. I bawled my eyes out, but I also loved it and I hope you do too. (Dua Lipa)
'Crying In H Mart destroyed me . . . It’s fantastic.' (Olivia Rodrigo)
Incredible . . . It absolutely wrecked me . . . So, so emotional (Natalie Portman)
I cried my way through all of it . . . It is so beautiful and so incredible . . . I was so moved, and I cannot hype it up enough. You guys need to read it for yourselves. (Kaia Gerber)
Michelle Zauner's Crying In H Mart is as good as everyone says it is and, yes, it will have you in tears. An essential read for anybody who has lost a loved one, as well as those who haven't.
Brilliant . . . A simultaneously joyful and gut-wrenching account of a highly complicated mother-daughter relationship (The Evening Standard, 'Best Memoirs of All Time')
The best book I’ve read in the past year . . . frank, lyrical, humorous. (Claudia Roden, Financial Times)
The book’s descriptions of jjigae, tteokbokki, and other Korean delicacies stand out as tokens of the deep, all-encompassing love between Zauner and her mother, a love that is charted in vivid descriptions of her mother after death; in a time when people around the world are reckoning with untold loss due to COVID-19, Zauner’s frankness around death feels like an unexpected yet deeply necessary gift.
A beautiful, honest and stylish account of grief, food and heritage. The way Zauner writes about food and how it acts as a bridge between her and her mother, her culture, her sense of self, is brilliantly written. (Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby)
Crying in H Mart stunned me - with its truthfulness and the force of its yearning. Beautiful, intimate, powerful, it is an unforgettable portrayal of grief and the bond between mother and daughter. (Catherine Cho, author of Inferno)
Zauner brings dish after dish to life on the page in a rich broth of delectable details, cultural context and the personal history often packed into every bite. . . [Crying in H Mart] will ultimately thrill Japanese Breakfast fans and provide comfort to those in the throes of loss while brilliantly detailing the colorful panorama of Korean culture, traditions and — yes — food'
Crying in H Mart is a warm and wholehearted work of literature, an honest and detailed account of grief over time, studded with moments of hope, humor, beauty, and clear-eyed observation. It is not to be missed.
Crying in H Mart is palpable in its grief and its tenderness, reminding us what we all stand to lose.
All stars
Most relevant
I just wanted to say thank you to Michelle for her candid documentation of her relationship with her mother, family and identity. It verbalised emotions and sentiments I could never find the energy or strength to properly process and for that I am grateful.

A memoir that helped me process my own grief

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Each chapter was emotive and beautifully written, filled with grief, family, culture and food. A must read!

A beautifully written memoir

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I wanted to hug Michelle throughout this whole book, it is difficult to read about the shame she felt. I appreciated the brutal honesty

heck

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While my experience of palliating my mother was very different, so many moments in this book resonated powerfully with me. There are elements of grief and of loss that are universal parts of the human condition. Thank you Michelle, for sharing these most vulnerable parts of yourself so candidly. Your story is beautiful.

Poignant, painful, beautiful.

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if you want to feel completely unoriginal in all your trauma and experiences as a first generation immigrant daughter, then this book is for you! Michele manages to capture the very essence of the struggle of living between two cultures, from clinging desperately to food as the one thing you could claim to be part of your culture, down to the having to use google translate to speak to your relatives. Entirely too relatable, i had to pause the book several times to catch my breath because i felt wholly attacked. My therapist will be hearing about this. Highly recommend.

first gen immigrant daughters beware

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