This book was recommended by BTS and the title instantly grabbed my attention. I went into it not knowing what to expect which I think is a good way to go into this kind of book. This short memoir discusses mental health in a way that most of us think about sometimes and how it also affects how we look at strangers.

A fantastic work about a woman’s despair and mental health, her spiraling and attempts at improvement, and her longing for something more.

I was really excited to have been approved this ARC since I've been seeing it alllll over booksta recently, but I was a little let down? it wasn't a bad book and it wasn't a GREAT book, it was just a solid memoir. this all may be unique to me (since everyone seems to be loving this so far) because of the different format Se-hee uses to tell this story. it's put together in an interview style format using recordings from multiple therapy sessions while using short anecdotes at the start and end of each chapter. to me this formatting just made it seem as if I was being hand held and it turned into a struggle to get through. especially as someone who has always been interested in mental health and psychology (as someone with a psychology degree, this book was SO up my alley) but unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations.

overall, I would still recommend this to anyone who might want a short and easy read about someone struggling with mental health and is learning to how to work through it. there was a lot of relatable moments within the dialogue between Se-hee and her therapist that I found myself learning from and can definitely see others benefitting from knowing that these feelings aren't so uncommon.

I am probably the exact target audience for <em>I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki</em>, so I wanted to read this immediately upon seeing the fantastic title and very quickly devoured this book. I think anyone who has depression and/or anxiety will relate and find themselves both comforted and cringing by the therapy session transcripts and essays. Mental illness can make you feel so alone and so other, and I commend the bravery it took the author to put it all out there in hopes that readers understand and find some solace in their struggles and recovery work. The translation from Korean seems very well-done, and I appreciated the footnotes for phrases like "aquarium management" that I had not heard before. I was maybe expecting a touch more humor, but let's face it, our hard days are not always funny. Bonus, I now can pronounce "tteokbokki" and have found a vegan recipe to try. Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This was an interesting read. It was a shorter but you also need to read it slower as it is quite potent with thoughtful ideas. As the author and her therapist talk through depression, there are many moments that you can latch onto, rereading and potentially allowing you to understand yourself a bit more. It definitely wasn't a binge; I read it in short spouts, allowing myself to take in the wisdom.

I genuinely love this book. The fact she is letting us see into her therapy sessions so that we can see what it's like to live with depression is something new and refreshing to the selfhelp genre. most selfhelps just tell you how to get better but don't show how hard it actually is to get to that point. I enjoyed reading about her life of course it was a little hard to relate because our depressions are different but it was well thought out.

"I simply gave in to the fact that I was someone who was depressed from birth, and let my world grow darker and darker."

This is the most biased review I can give because I related to Baek Sehee on a deep level. It was like Baek Sehee took all the thoughts and feelings in my head and worded them so clearly. This book truly felt like a mirror, reflecting everything back at me. Written mostly in a style of a transcript of Baek Sehee and her therapist's discussions. I don't read self-help books as I find them preachy and not relatable. this, however, was the most accurate depiction of depression and healing. I highlighted so much of this book, either from reliability or from comfort.

I've read some reviews criticizing the therapist, criticizing the direction of their conversations- I just want to say that healing, talking, sharing, confronting your flaws and learning to correct them is not a linear path. As much as I wish it was. Baek Sehee does an incredible job showing that.

I really think this is an important book to read. If you want to understand how self-esteem affects someone's life, this is a first-hand account of that. I really enjoyed reading this. I felt like I learned a lot and reiterated what I already know.

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Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of I WANT TO DIE BUT I WANT TO EAT TTEOPOKKI by Baek Se-hee, a memoir/self-help book. I finished reading this book tonight, and while it wasn't what I expected, there were things about it that I enjoyed.

I loved the concept. Se-hee displays vision, creativity, and courage. This is an amazing project and she invented a genre here. The "MySelf-Help Book"!

Se-hee is blunt yet charming, I couldn't help but respect her throughout this book. The best parts of the text are her essays, which come at the beginning of each chapter, and at the end of the book.

A whole group of essays concludes the book, and this is the best material -- personal, honest, beautiful. My favorite essay is "A Life With No Modifiers" p170.

I had one really big problem with this book. I'm going to remain brief here, as brief as possible, and say if the psychiatrist in this book was my psychiatrist, I wouldn't have returned after the first session. Definitely not after he mischaracterized rationalizing and told me to go ahead with it. For sure not after his terrible advice on how to address my excessive drinking. That way he would never have the chance to make me think for a whole ten minutes that I have a personality disorder I don't actually have.

Se-hee deserves better, but it's not her fault she didn't get it. People get sub-par mental health care every day, all over the world. So I'm only taking off one star, even though that guy needs a new calling. Like with plants.

Rating 4 stars
Finished August 2022
Recommended to fans of medical memoir, mental health self-help; readers interested in psychology, psychiatry; readers seeking diverse voices

Thank you to #NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
Wonderfully translated, "I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki" is a book published with a fresh format of a memoir. Despite its unique set-up-- part transcribed talks between the author and her therapist and short reflections-- I found myself dragging myself to finish this, I found that the story seemed to drag along and in retrospect, the themes within this book were too simple. I felt as if I was being spoon-fed and walked through each line; basically, there was no challenge for the reader. It was all perfectly laid out.

I recommend this book to people who are new to understanding anxiety and depression and/or therapy.

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki was so relatable! As someone who struggles with anxiety and depression I really enjoyed this honest book of Sehee in therapy. It even helped me think about and realize some things that I have talked about in therapy. I recommend this book. Its very different then anything else out there.

Thank you to #NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

From the essay collection’s brilliant introduction, Baek Sehee has managed to accomplish a rare feat: to invite the reader in and share of herself in a way that makes an audience feel less isolated. Her descriptions of her dysthymia “seeming totally fine on the outside while rotting from the inside,” are beautiful and raw. I want to be her friend, even if she would like me less for it. Fans of Jenny Lawson will adore this collection.

It’s a solid book which doesn’t try to market itself as a self help book but you end up gaining something. I really liked the title and the writing style. Kudos to the author and translator for that. There are certain areas that I skipped mostly because it didn’t resonate with me as much. The last set of pages which mostly seemed like author’s ramblings were interesting in a way. If the book was written in a more diary entry sort of way with a more coherent throughly flowing through the chapters and pages, I would have given it a 5 star rating. But this is a book everyone should read.
On a side note, this therapist seems to talk and advice a lot. None of the therapist I have seen and my friends have seen speak so much. Probably a cultural thing between South Korea and US.

Based on the title, I assumed this would have more of a balance of humor and deeply earnest lamentations of depression. However, it was interesting to read the transcripts from Sehee's therapist sessions. I think this could be helpful in opening up a dialigue about mental health for lot of readers.

Shoutout to Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“I hope that people who keep ending their relationships because they feel like they’re being looked down on, people who tend to think in extremes like me, will read this. We are many-sided. That’s all” -Baek Se-hee
WOW, the author read me to filth in this book, but in the best way possible. At times it felt as if Baek was in my head broadcasting my every thought as she recounted her story. In Se-hee’s candid and daring part memoir part self-help book, she utilizes the structure of conversations with her psychiatrist for her storytelling. In this tell-all tale Se-hee focuses on relatable themes such as cognitive distortions, self comparison, self criticism, introversion, and her personal struggles with depression & anxiety. Se-hee depicts this narrative by baring it all-the good, the bad, and the ugly, refusing to hold back from honesty in her prose. It was engaging to follow her psychiatrist’s point of view as she helped the protagonist to challenge and reframe her negative thought patterns, in turn urging readers to do so as well. Se-hee frees herself from the shackles of any filter in this truthful and refreshing depiction of what it means to be a Korean woman struggling with mental illness. While the choice of this work’s unique structure is vastly entertaining, at times I hoped that the author would venture out to more reflection, rather than a simple retelling of her conversations with her psychiatrist. This book is definitely not plot-driven and not much happens in this story, as it’s more of a reflection of Se-hee’s many struggles throughout the course of her mental health journey thus far. I really appreciated the mention of Histrionic Personality Disorder in this story as it’s a majorly stigmatized and rarely discussed disorder. If you’re looking for a book that will really make you think and reflect on your actions, I would definitely add this to your TBR!
“I often look for books that are like medicine, that fit my situation and my thoughts,” -Baek Se-hee (very meta quote here)

I want to die but I want to eat tteobokki 🍜

Part memoir and part self help in its style, this text is FULL of feels, from start to finish.

Sorry not sorry for the double post today, but I am absolutely in my feels rn. Not only did I go to my youngest bestie’s 30th bday yesterday I also started my day with some major pms cramps. 😅

Anyways, as the title captures quite frankly, this read deals with some real heart-wrenching content. So if you, too, have struggled with depression and mental health, much like author Baek Sehee has, or like I have, this read could be a bit taxing at times. Once I leaned in, ultimately this read was encouraging and reminded me that progress can be made (albeit slowly, but what healing does not take time?). Through self reflection and conversational insights, readers may catch some feels. Especially as the author is referred to throughout as "Me", and we follow multiple sessions that they have with their Psychiatrist, who is referred to as such, at times it is hard not to start to trail off in thought and think about your own personal shit, like I was guilty of.

Despite being lots of questions and answers from both author and psychiatrist within the prose, don't expect this one to contain all the answers to the big questions in life, but do expect some the gears to turn or some tears to form.

Other notes: I read this one on my kindle + was gifted a digital arc from @bloomsburypublishing - THANK YOU! I then layered the background of the book cover with an image from @okonomikitchen ‘s blog because I haven’t had tteokbokki in YEARS but I have a hankering now so I’ll be sure to get ingredients or take out asap because YUMMY!

Interesting memoir! I will admit that it was the title that initially intrigued me enough to request this ARC . The translation was easy enough to follow, and through I didn’t necessarily agree with some of the points the therapist made, I appreciate how the overarching message here (or, at least, the one I took away most strongly) is that there’s only one “you” in this world, and that fact alone already makes you so special and worth everything.

Simple but so freaking effective! Exactly what I needed to read, and remaining with such nuanced takes.

I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a essentially comprised of dialogues between the author and her therapist, and her reflections on what she has learned from those conversations. I found the dialogues to be very long and tedious, as well as very personal to the author. The things she talked about, the ideas provided to her, and her reflections did not seem very applicable to other people. While some of the reflections I felt provided an interesting or different perspective that I could apply to my own life, most did not seem very helpful. By the end of the memoir, when there were no longer any more dialogues between her and her therapist, I started to enjoy it more. I found the things the author was saying to much more engaging and impactful and therefore think this could have been better had the dialogues been omitted or at least shortened, seeing as they were about 10 pages each, which is much longer than they needed to be.
I did appreciate how open and vulnerable the author was, providing all the negative thoughts and the struggles she went through in detail. A lot of struggles did feel very relatable to me as someone who also struggles with my mental health. I also really appreciated that instead of ending it with saying she’s all better and now the depression is completely gone, she explained how there are periods of feeling bad and periods of feeling good, and there will continue to always be periods of good and bad. Rather than having it go away, she learned to live with it and how to continue to live during bad periods.
While there were definitely some good qualities to this and the author is clearly a talented writer, I just found that I had to force myself to continue reading this. I unfortunately found it very dull and I don’t feel that I gained anything from this. I really wanted to like this but I ended up being very disappointed. Overall, I gave this 2.75 stars (rounded up to 3).

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee

This book provides a candid look into the author’s experiences with depression and anxiety in the form of conversations with her psychiatrist. This book is not a memoir, as I expected it to be, nor is it a comedic or lighthearted take on the topic, as the title seems to suggest. There is no narrative through-line, the author just provides her real conversations with her psychiatrist, following each conversation with a short blog-like entry of realizations she is coming to as she proceeds with talk therapy and medication management.

I think it is really helpful to have a book that presents real therapy sessions. While my own mental illness varies a lot from Sehee’s experiences, I resonated with her on some topics and many readers will find solace in seeing that they aren’t the only way to feel or think certain things. It also gives a good example of what talk therapy is like, hopefully dispelling fears and encouraging some readers to seek therapy for themselves.
Due to the lack of narrative, the book may be hard for some readers to engage with. Fans of essay may be more likely to enjoy this book. It is not one that I would recommend to those trying to understand mental illness but may be a comfort to those who suffer from mental illness, and has wisdom to offer that can help change certain negative thought patterns.

Overall, I think it would have been more compelling to follow the author’s blog entries in real time. I found myself searching for things I could relate to, comparing my own mental illness to that of the author’s, but did find a few very beautiful thoughts and passages interspersed, especially in the “Appendix.”

I really, really wanted to like this. The title is perfect, and from its description, it seemed fully aligned with my interest. Unfortunately, the actual act of reading it was decidedly not fun. Everything about it felt stilted till the essays (?) at the end. I actually far preferred those. There is a large part of me that wonders if this was a translation issue. The language and structure were stilted and awkward, and it was hard to tell if that was the intended effect or not. I get that the author may have been/felt awkward in her sessions, but I lean heavily towards this being a translation issue because the psychologist's parts were equally strange in their phrasing.