Hunger
Roxane Gay
Like Zauner, Gay writes candidly about the body, appetite and a complicated relationship with home and self, in a memoir that is raw, personal and clear-eyed about pain.
11 books to read next
Books Like Crying in H Mart
If you loved Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Crying in H Mart is a memoir about grief, identity and food. Michelle Zauner writes about losing her mother and reconnecting with her Korean heritage through cooking, grocery shopping and family recipes. Readers often love its honest, unsentimental voice, its sensory writing about meals, and its balance of personal loss with questions about belonging as a mixed-race American. The pace is reflective and conversational, with short chapters that move between memory and the present.
Food as memory and identity
Save Me the Plums
Ruth Reichl
Reichl's memoir of editing Gourmet is full of vivid writing about cooking and eating, and it shares Zauner's focus on how food carries memory and connection.
Eat a Peach
David Chang, Gabe Ulla
Chang mixes restaurant life, family history and cooking in a candid voice, much as Zauner braids her mother's kitchen and her own struggles together.
Grief told with honesty
H Is for Hawk
Helen Macdonald
A memoir of loss and grief through an intense, unusual practice, written with the same precise, emotionally direct prose that makes Crying in H Mart so affecting.
The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion
Didion's account of losing her husband is spare and unflinching about grief, matching the restrained intensity Zauner brings to writing about her mother's death.
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi
A memoir about mortality and family written with lyrical honesty, appealing to readers moved by how Zauner faces illness and the loss of a parent.
Coming of age and heritage
The Woman Warrior
Maxine Hong Kingston
A classic memoir of growing up as a Chinese American daughter, exploring family stories, inherited expectations and cultural identity in a way that echoes Zauner's search for belonging.
Fun Home
Alison Bechdel
A graphic memoir about a difficult parent and a child working out who they are, with the same tender, precise attention to family and self-discovery found in Crying in H Mart.
Born a Crime
Trevor Noah
Noah's warm, funny memoir about growing up mixed-race in a divided society and his close bond with his mother shows the same mix of humour and heritage that readers love in Zauner's book.
Go deeper into Asian American stories
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee
A multigenerational novel following a Korean family across decades of migration and hardship, offering the Korean-American history and family depth that Zauner's memoir touches on.
Everything I never told you
Celeste Ng
A novel about a Chinese American family grappling with loss and unspoken expectations, which will resonate with readers drawn to the quiet tensions of Zauner's family story.
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