I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki: The cult hit everyone is talking about

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For ten years, she received psychiatric treatment for dysthymia (persistent mild depression), which became the subject of her essays, and then I Want to Die, but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki . Psychiatrist’s statements like: “We drink precisely to get drunk but now you’re envious of people who drink and don’t get drunk” or inquiring with an only slightly hidden shock why the author gained five kilos (“Really? She holds nothing back, to the extent that she often comes across as rather annoying, and she betrays an inability to see what she’s doing at the time she does it.

Slightly longer version: This book was a little too bare for my tastes and not as intimate or in-depth as I would have expected from reading transcripts of therapy sessions. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of I WANT TO DIE BUT I WANT TO EAT TTEOKPOKKI by Baek Se-hee, a memoir/self-help book. Diriku adalah sesuatu yang butuh istirahat sesaat sambil menarik napas panjang atau terkadang butuh cambukan agar bisa bergerak ke depan. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition.Recognising yourself in the author apparently happens to some readers but the level of advice and support is so poor that I warn anyone hoping to actually find some guidance and clarity in it that it is most likely not going to happen.

Crossing those barriers between hot and cold, I forget the lukewarm boredom of life; that lukewarm state is what I fear the most.In the end, reading this book was like experiencing someone's inner monologue: someone who's trying to figure out their own traumas and motivations, drifting from thought to thought at will.

The confusion evident in Baek Se-hee’s dialogues mirrored my own struggles, and the psychiatrist’s words provided me with the comforting solace I desperately needed. She worries constantly about her appearance and what other people think about her, a mindset that plagues many Korean women. I wanted more of the author’s narrative, and the brief pages in between transcriptions were helpful but not enough to make it feel like a story. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. Baek, understandably, finds these sessions to be enlightening as through them she gains self-knowledge and a more nuanced understanding of her mental health, I did not.I do hope that this is not what she actually said to the main character because I find the analysis hopelessly nonsensical. However, I would expect her to learn this and start processing the positive change within the first month of therapy, not after ten years. This takes place over the course of twelve weeks, and if you go into this book expecting more than simple conversations about therapy and the sad feelings Baek is going up against every day in her life, then you’re probably not going to be a fan of this book. Inhaled this book this weekend morning and I am so glad I decided to pick it up after getting frustrated by my recents reads turning out to be either DNFs or very disappointing ones. Please remember that at the root of it all, to be empathetic is to have at least SOME understanding for why people do what they do and where it comes from.