Memoir Monday and I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee... From Kirkus Reviews: Tteokbokki is a popular Korean dish of bland rice cakes immersed in a spicy pepper sauce. The duality is a good metaphor for this book, a bestseller in South Korea. Baek has dysthymia, a low-level but persistent depression. The narrative is primarily a collection of the author’s discussions with her therapist, punctuated with short essays leavened by the poignancy of self-reflection and occasional flashes of humor. Though issues involving mental health continue to be stigmatized, Baek is clear in her belief that her story could help those in similar circumstances. “I wonder about those like me, who seem totally fine on the outside but are rotting on the inside,” she writes, “where the rot is this vague state of being not-fine and not-devastated at the same time.” While the author realizes that many of her problems stem from a painful family background, she also examines the pressure on Korean women to conform to an idealized image. She worries constantly about her appearance and what other people think about her, a mindset that plagues many Korean women. Some of the author’s discussions relate directly to Korean culture, but much of it transcends borders and will resonate with readers around the world. As she gradually worked through the therapy process, Baek learned how to avoid the emotional roller coaster that comes with dysthymia and how to avoid constantly judging herself and others. Though the act of living always comes with ups and downs, it’s important to keep them in context and seek an appropriate balance. Baek acknowledges that she might never be entirely free of her dysthymia, but she can manage it, live with it, and understand it as part of her being.

This is a smash hit in Korea. Words like "compelling", "honest", "heartfelt" kept popping up as I read more and more about this book. 

Baek Sehee herself has said: "I wanted those that are feeling and living as I do to read the book and find relief that they are not alone."

Originally published in 2 parts in Korea, it is now translated to English and published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2022. It is a slim 208 pages and available at your local bookstore.( Right now though, the hardcover edition is on sale at Amazon for 45% off!) I want to thank Bloomsbury Publishing for an eBook copy of I Want to Die but I want to Eat Tteokbokki to review! Look for my review coming soon...

#IWanttoDiebutIWanttoEatTteokbokki

#NetGalley

Memoir Monday...

One Hundred Saturdays by Michael Frank... With nearly a century of life behind her, Stella Levi had never before spoken in detail about her past. Then she met Michael Frank. He came to her Greenwich Village apartment one Saturday afternoon to ask her a question about the Juderia, the neighborhood in Rhodes where she’d grown up in a Sephardic Jewish community that had thrived there for half a millennium. Neither of them could know this was the first of one hundred Saturdays that they would spend in each other’s company as Stella traveled back in time to conjure what it felt like to come of age on this luminous, legendary island in the eastern Aegean, which the Italians won in 1912 as the Ottoman empire was disintegrating, began officially governing as a colonial possession in 1923, and transformed over the next two decades until the Germans seized control and deported the entire Juderia to Auschwitz in July of 1944.

Probing and courageous, candid and sly, Stella is a magical modern-day Scheherazade whose stories reveal what it was like to grow up in an extraordinary place in an extraordinary time—and to construct a life after that place vanished. One Hundred Saturdays is a portrait of one of the last survivors, drawn at nearly the last possible moment; it is also an account of a tender and transformative friendship that develops between storyteller and listener as they explore the fundamental mystery of what it means to collect, share, and interpret the deepest truths of a life deeply lived.

In the vein of Tuesday with Morrie, Michael Frank spends 100 Saturdays, nearly 6 years, talking with Stella Levi in her Greenwich Village apartment. A chance meeting at a lecture turns into a wonderful friendship and of Stella sharing her story, her life.

One Hundred Saturdays was listed under the Indies Next selections as one the 6 Now in Paperback selections for September 2023. Originally this book was in the running for the Indie Next pick in September of 2022, but didn't win the #1 spot. But that's how I found this book... reading about Septembers' picks. And it intrigued me. I generally shy away from books about the Holocaust. They just depress me. But this book takes place in an area I'm unfamiliar with: Rhodes, Greece. But not only is this a story of survival, but it also is a coming of age story. I like how the author and Stella Levi meet and how the author takes the next 100 saturdays to listen to Stella recount her life to him. 

On my nightstand, published by Avid Reader Press, a division of Simon & Schuster last September, it is now available in paperback.

Memoir Monday

Tell Me Everything by Minka Kelly... Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in these pages, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy.

Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. At times they even lived in storage units. She reconnected with her father, Aerosmith’s Rick Dufay, and eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she landed the role of a lifetime on Friday Night Lights.

Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer. She has poured her soul into the pages of this book, which ultimately tells a story of triumph over adversity, and how resilience and love are all we have in the end.

I have not watched Friday Nite Lights, the TV series, and knew nothing really about Minka Kelly, but in a book review I happened to glance by, someone was raving about this book. There are many celebrities who have a lot to say, but I'm not really a celebrity watcher and most of those memoirs and biographies I have little interest in. Something struck me about this memoir. Maybe it's because I don't know Minka Kelly from the big screen or television. I just read about this incredibly resilient woman who came from growing up in strip clubs to become a successful woman on her own terms. We all have a history, but some are messier than others. But why write this memoir? I am always curious as to a celebrities reason, maybe more suspicious of a celebrities reason, but Minka's explains her reason in an article on TheCut.com By Monica Corcoran Harel...

Kelly also makes it abundantly clear in our conversation — and a follow-up phone call a couple weeks later — that she doesn’t see herself as a victim. She’s not seeking any sympathy either. “I decided to tell my story because the media has written a narrative of me, based on the men they have seen me with, whether I’ve dated them or not,” she says of a list of exes — which includes Derek Jeter, Chris Evans, and Trevor Noah — that prompts headlines that rarely respect her privacy and pushes an agenda that commends her for hooking up with boldface names. (Case in point: The Cut’s own recent callout, “Is Minka Kelly Dating the Imagine Dragons Guy?”) “If you’re going to have an opinion of me, you may as well have the whole picture,” she adds.

Published by Macmillan Publishers recently, this is on my wishlist. Follow the link to read an excerpt.