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psellars11's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, and Cancer
Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Racism, Car accident, Terminal illness, Alcoholism, Addiction, and Body horror
flamesocks's review
5.0
Graphic: Chronic illness, Drug use, Grief, Car accident, Alcohol, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Medical content, Toxic relationship, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Abortion
linearev's review against another edition
4.75
However, I was not in the slightest, ready, for the heavy hitting force of the fact, that this is a self biography. A portrait of no the the Korean minority in USA but also of a complicated relationship between a mother and daughter. A generational tradition of complicated love and amazing food. It introduces the reader to the inner workings of someone who is both rather relatable as she is partly American, yet also somewhat astranged (from someone who grew up so differently). And yet, the brilliance of her writing reveals itself by letting us into her Korean side and guiding us through that world. It left me feeling both entertained yet also more knowledgeable each time I finished a chapter. Because somehow she balanced this complicated self portrait with humor which created the sort of entertainment often found in fictional books.
All to say that this was very good. It sort of reminds me of the new and popular “I’m glad my mom died” which ironically takes the opposite stance of the maternal relation between the main people, yet left me with the same feeling of stepping out of the life of someone compelling and complicated. I liked it enormously and hope to read more from her soon.
Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Toxic relationship, Grief, Mental illness, Death of parent, Medical content, Vomit, and Terminal illness
madreadings's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Chronic illness, Cancer, and Medical content
Moderate: Vomit
crieraylas's review
4.5
Graphic: Medical content, Cancer, Grief, Death, Chronic illness, Racism, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Medical trauma, Addiction, Car accident, and Alcoholism
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Body shaming, and Eating disorder
Minor: Infidelity, Violence, and Abortion
_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
ka_cam's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Chronic illness, Grief, Death, Death of parent, and Cancer
Moderate: Misogyny, Car accident, Racism, and Abortion
anabmuqtar's review against another edition
4.0
Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Terminal illness, and Grief
cassondradubois's review
5.0
Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, and Death of parent
Moderate: Eating disorder
kaylaswhitmore's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Cancer, Fatphobia, Grief, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Cursing, Car accident, Infidelity, and Body shaming
Minor: Vomit