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_annika__'s review against another edition
3.75
The issue I have with this book is personal, but perhaps relatable to anyone from a small town - I almost had to put the book down because I couldn’t stand the author continuously calling Eugene, Oregon (second biggest city in the state, a major PAC12 college town, an hour away from Portland) small, boring, and dull. Almost every single person I’ve met that’s lived in a <10,000 person town (and bigger, honestly) would KILL to be in Eugene. If the author would have said “I hated growing up in Eugene” I could’ve moved on, but she seemed to hate it specifically because it’s “small” and because there was “nothing to do.”
Every kid that’s suffered growing up in a 3,000 person town in the middle of a corn field somewhere in the Midwest - where 99.99% of the population is white and so strictly religious they unironically call Halloween “the devil’s holiday” and avoid you like the plague if you don’t go to their same church (imagine if you don’t go to church at all, and they repeatedly egg your house for it) - would have likely cut off a finger or two to grow up in Eugene or anywhere near it. I’m hoping the author bemoaned her adolescence in such a “small town” for dramatic effect and that she didn’t actually feel that strongly about it.
I understand teenage angst and depression and would have been more understanding if that was the main reason for feeling the way she did growing up, since most teens experience those feelings and at least at the time, likely no matter where you live, we feel like we don’t belong and we hate it there. But the amount of those feelings that she blamed specifically on the “small dull Pacific Northwest town” she lived in personally made my eye twitch. Growing up in a larger, modern, and progressive college town (often rated one of the most progressive cities in the entire U.S.) would be a privilege to sooo many.
Since the reader knows she’s writing this post-adolescence I was waiting for her to correct how she felt about this small town with “nothing to do” (aside from going to record stores, go vintage clothes shopping, get specialty Korean ingredients from a local market, and see Modest Mouse - just to name a few). Again, I acknowledge this as a personal issue taken with the book, but I assume most people that grew up in rural or small towns would struggle and also feel that a large part of the author’s adolescence and story is unreachable and I relatable because of this as well.
Graphic: Cancer, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Terminal illness, Car accident, Death, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Bullying, Alcohol, Body shaming, Panic attacks/disorders, Infidelity, Abortion, Addiction, and Alcoholism
daniofthewood's review
5.0
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Death, Terminal illness, and Cancer
Moderate: Alcoholism, Car accident, Drug use, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content
Minor: Abortion, Addiction, Body shaming, and Racism
biab00's review
4.5
Sometimes my grief feels as thought I've been left alone in a room with no doors. Every time I remember that my mother is dead, it feels like I'm colliding with a wall that won't give. There's no escape, just a hard surface that I keep ramming into over and over, a reminder of the immutable reality that I will never see her again.
Graphic: Alcohol, Chronic illness, Medical content, Death of parent, Grief, Death, Terminal illness, and Panic attacks/disorders
edencameron's review
5.0
Moderate: Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Fatphobia, Alcoholism, Terminal illness, Body shaming, Death, Suicide, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Abortion, Addiction, Cursing, Grief, Medical trauma, and Mental illness
raelong12's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Terminal illness, Vomit, Cancer, and Death of parent
Moderate: Excrement, Alcoholism, Medical content, and Panic attacks/disorders
xeno_reads's review
5.0
Graphic: Cancer, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Grief, and Medical content
mirandyli's review
5.0
Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Excrement, Abortion, Drug use, Medical content, Misogyny, Cancer, Colonisation, Death, Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, Addiction, Car accident, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Grief, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Infidelity, and Racism
literaryinluv's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, and Mental illness
Minor: Abortion, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Addiction, Car accident, and Infidelity
gabriella_'s review
5.0
A lot of this book I personally resonated with. While I am not Korean, the mother-daughter bonding, themes of feeling disconnected from culture, grief, and transcending love of food hit very hard. Zauner finds a way to bring a personal story up and close to the reader. She has a way with words.
I can’t express how grateful I am to read this book. It feels like a warm hug. I hope anyone who has struggled with grief, especially those who mourn a mom or motherly figure, walk away from this book with even a shred of comfort. There is so much I want to say, so much thanks I want to pay the author for being as vulnerable as she was. And so much I want to thank her for, for expressing how painful her journey has been.
Some lines of this book really stuck with me, and I’ll end this review with one that made me audibly sob.
When one person collapses, the other instinctively shoulders their weight.
Graphic: Vomit, Alcohol, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcoholism, Blood, Mental illness, Grief, and Cancer
Moderate: Cursing
mheiling's review
3.75
Graphic: Cancer, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Addiction, Body shaming, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Abortion, Toxic relationship, Car accident, and Panic attacks/disorders