Michelle Zauner

The 2025 GPS Community Read features Michelle Zauner’s acclaimed bestselling memoir “Crying in H Mart,” a powerful book about growing up Korean American, losing her mother and forging her own identity. With humor and heart, Zauner describes her adolescence, discovering her love of music, and negotiating her complex relationship with her mother…from struggling to meet her mother’s high expectations to bonding with her over plates of steaming food.

When Zauner was 25, her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She moved home to become her mother’s caretaker, embarking on a journey that would force a reckoning with her identity and eventually a reclamation of the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Here is an amazing and engaging story of family, food, grief and self-discovery.

Musician, author, and director Michelle Zauner is best known as the frontwoman for her Grammy-nominated indie pop band that toured internationally and appeared on Saturday Night Live—Japanese Breakfast—and her bestselling memoir “Crying in H Mart.” She was named a TIME 100 Most Influential Person and the book instantly rocketed to the New York Times bestseller list, where it has remained for over a year. It was named one of the year’s best books by The New York Times, TIME, NPR, Washington Post, Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, and Good Morning America. Former President Obama also included “Crying in H Mart” among his favorite books of the year. Zauner is currently adapting “Crying in H Mart” into a feature film through Orion Pictures.