If anyone doesn’t understand how ‘whiteness’ has nothing to do with skin colour you can just show them this book. A book about being half Korean written by the whitest woman in the world.

She manages to make everything about her. The most obvious example is her father. You would think she would have some empathy, after all whatever she is feeling for this distant mother figure she barely interacted with must be a thousand times harder for the man whose life was completely defined by her, who lived with her his entire life. But no, instead she tries her best to demean and belittle his experience, culminating in the weirdest scene in the book, where she asks the reader to join her in smugly judging a grieving widower for committing the sin of acting like a tourist in a foreign country.

Then there’s the food, just endless irrelevant lists that make the eyes glaze over, like you’re at an asian restaurant with a white friend who wants to show off how worldly they are. The best food writers will go out of their way to place food in the context of the place it comes from and the culture it represents, using food as a way to build understanding of another people and another way of thinking. Not this author, for her Korean food only represents a chance to show off how interesting she is. She can’t risk actually engaging with the culture beyond a superficial level because then she might have to consider other people worldviews. There’s something so quintessentially millennial white woman about it. This is the Eat, Pray, Love of grief.

To be fair, this story would be perfect as an article, it would be heart wrenching and beautiful. As a book all it does is reveal the emptiness underneath.

I will say though, if you lost your mum I’m sure it would hit the feels, its so saccharine it can’t not.
And also if you want to know what it’s like to be the worst, this is the book for you.