This was a beautiful tribute to a mother, written by a grieving daughter. You might be a fan of Japanese Breakfast – but even if you haven’t enjoyed the indie-pop band, you could still get a great deal of pleasure from reading this memoir. I say pleasure with an asterisk – as suggested in the title, this book will most likely inspire tears. Michelle Zauner’s mother died in 2014, when she was 25. This book shares stories about her childhood with a Korean mother and an American father. As a child she traveled to Korea with her mother biannually, and even in America her mother maintained a close tie to her heritage, most prominently through food. Five years after her death, Zauner is still grieving (as she will always be), but has enough space from the initial grief to be able to write an open and moving memoir.
If you have experienced loss similar to this one, you may want to be prepared for the specificity Zauner is able to conjure with her writing. She writes about the fractured before / after dichotomy, the foreknowledge of the eternal pain of a loss of that magnitude, and because she imbues her writing with so much love it’s impossible not to share in her grief. To let her grief mingle, even temporarily, with your own, whether you’ve lost a parent or not. She is very honest about her relationship with both of her parents, which enriches your understanding of the love she has for her mother. They may not have always understood each other perfectly, but yet they each knew that their bond was unique and special – it’s perhaps not possible for anyone else to love you as much and as deeply as your mother.
There is a lot of buzz around this book, and I would say that it lived up to that for me. This is a real family, imperfect, hurting each other while also attempting to care for one another. Moving seems like such a trite way to describe a memoir about death but yet it’s so apt here. This book was moving. This universal experience – grieving someone we love – is made personal, and makes space for us to react to our own grief. I’m thankful for the gift that she shared with us, and so sorry for her loss. I hope that for Michelle Zauner, her mother’s memory continues to be a blessing for her.
