I was so excited to pick up this book, as The title certainly packs a punch and piqued my interest right away.
I am very appreciative of the authors raw vulnerability and I know that this book made and will continue to make a big impact in breaking down stigmas associated with mental health, and seeking professional help- something I think is very needed and so important.
However I was a little let down by this book as a whole.
I was a bit confused about the formatting of this book, I would have preferred the long list of essays at the end of the book be interspersed throughout. Or, truthfully, I would have appreciated much longer essays that delved into the feelings our writer had following each session. I found the essays before and after each dictated session to be very short. Often ending abruptly. I found myself wishing our author would go a little deeper with these essays as at times I felt them lacking maturity, and introspection. I also think it could have benefited narrative threads to tie it all together as it often felt like major life events had happened (example-breaking up with a partner) with no context with it being dumped into the next session unceremoniously.
I felt a bit sympathetic to the psychiatrist in his piece in the book, indicating that he was very shocked she planned to use his words to turn it into a book, and in retrospect would have used different clinical choices had he known that was the case. I also find it interesting that the book consists of many of his words but he is never credited.
With such a shocking title I was really expecting deeper explorations of depression as a whole- I feel I didn’t get that with this book.

the title was the first thing i saw and it captured my attention because i related to it so much. (well, not the tteokbokki part since sadly i havent had the chance to give it a try yet hahah) but i have thoughts close to it every single day.

reading the first few pages, i knew i was going to realte to the whole book a lot, and it made me excited to continue. while obviously not the exact same, i found i share a lot experiences and thoughts with the author and i feel like the book helped me think more clearly and not feel so awful about them. i could probably talk about how much i related to it for a good hour, but since this is a book review i wont do that ahaha.

the only complaint or negative thing i have to say about the book is that i wish there was less of the therapy counselling sessions and more of the little paragraphs of the authors thoughts and feelings. i enjoyed them but thought there couldve been more, or they couldve been longer. also i could definitely see it getting a bit too repetitive for some people, but i didnt mind it much.

overall, im glad to have found a book i relate to so much and i would really recommend it to people who know theyre struggling with their mental health but cant seem to find a way to deal with it all.

thank you to the publisher bloomsbury usa & netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

This book was really touching in a way. It made me really compassionate of her and her struggles. Sometimes going outside of my head and into another makes me realize what I have and what I lack.

One thing I wish the author did more was her paragraph introspections were longer than just a paragraph. Because most of her book was prerecorded therapy sessions, it kind of felt like she really didn't "write" this book especially since she, understandingly, didn't credit her therapist, but yet a hefty part of the book is the therapist words.

Ttoekbokki is one of my absolute favorite foods. It's so spicy and textural and comforting. When I saw the title of this book, I knew I needed to read it. I've read it now, and I'm underwhelmed.

This book was written as a sort of experiment by the author, to record her therapy sessions and transcribe them into a book with little nuggets of "self-help" at the end of each chapter. The first couple of chapters, I really felt like I was relating to the author, I'm not typically the person highlighting passages in books, but I found myself doing that here. The more I read on though, the more I just realized the problems described and discussed were all the same and not generally addressed by the doctor, so the "self-help" part was lost on me. With such a great title, and with it being marketed as a memoir I was hoping for more context to the life we were reading about.

The transcript style of the book made it a quick read, but overall I am not a fan of the book or it's messages.

About 65% of this book was made up of therapy transcripts between Baek Sehee and her psychiatrist. She talks about feeling aimlessly depressed, inadequate, and self conscious. We get little pieces of advice, hear her confessions about deep-rooted feelings, see the repetitive nature of therapy, and witness the ups and downs of her experiences w psychiatric medication.
Following each transcript was a very short reflection on what it taught her. At the end, there are slightly longer reflections from her and her psychiatrist, and a slightly random collection of vignettes of Sehee’s feelings about various aspects of her life, such as her grandma, her dogs, and growing older.

I would have loved an afterword with some context about how this book was received in South Korea, where it was originally published and became a bestseller. I imagine it’s been helpful for destigmatizing therapy and medication, especially for people who have never had these experiences themselves.

I felt like the transcripts were lacking context (e.g. suddenly her psychiatrist is speaking with her about a breakup, but we hadn’t been told that she had been broken up with), and it cut off somewhat arbitrarily after a 12 week period even though she was clearly going to continue sessions after that point. I wish that the proportion of transcripts vs reflections had been different.

It was interesting to see the very directive style of therapy. But this book made me realize that therapy sessions are sort of mundane if you’re not the one experiencing the specific concerns at hand. Like my therapy sessions might seem enlightening to me but could be basic advice to someone w different life experiences.

thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for the eARC!

Currently reading an ARC of the English translation from NetGalley.

The book is very relatable and it’s transcript style format makes it easy to read. The language within is also not overly complex which adds to the easy reading quality.

However, I am finding this to be very repetitive. I understand that with this being a series of therapy sessions that is how it works, but at times it is tiresome.

As I come to the end of this book, I am finding it… scattered. The therapy sessions seem to end at a anticlimactic spot, which I get, it’s therapy, it’s nonfiction. But the therapist mentions speaking about the patient’s family members at their next session, but then it just ends.

The last few pages are like bits and pieces from a diary. All on different topics with personal stories/experiences to read and learn through. Personally, the transcript of the therapy sessions was more interesting to me than this.

“Revealing my darkness is just as natural a thing to do as revealing my light”

I greatly commend Baek Sehee on the bravery it took to write such an openly transparent book about her struggles with mental health.
It is a unique and much needed perspective to have the dialogue between the author and her psychiatrist written before us. After each chapter Sehee provides her reflections, which were insightful and poetic, as well as an appendix full of musings based on various topics.

In the beginning I did have some difficulty following along, as topics within the dialogue or her reflections seemed to jump around. However, given that this reads like Sehee’s personal journal throughout therapy the writing style represents her true thoughts and feelings. Nevertheless, I would have liked greater clarification within some areas, including the purpose of the appendix at the end, which while interesting felt quite disjointed from the book.

Regardless of your mental health status I think there is some advice from the author’s psychiatrist for everyone, and those considering therapy for the first time could find this book very helpful for what to expect for conversations with a therapist.

Thank you NetGalley, Bloomsbury USA, and Bloomsbury Publishing for access to an advance copy to review.

Thank you NetGalley & Bloomsbury for this ARC.

Okay, the review. I wanted to read this book because of the title (It’s a great title!) so, I neglected to check its genres which was a good and a bad decision.

It was good because I read it. I’s a very short read, the format is easy and the narration feels more like a conversation you’d have with a friend over cafecito.

It was bad because self-help books are not really my thing so, once I realized this book is not only a memoir, I almost gave up on it haha.

This tiny book is a good start if you want to read more non-fiction books out of your comfort zone. Some parts felt pretty relatable.

I would avoid it though if you’re not a big fan of non-fiction in general, although it’s a short read, because it’s a compilation of the author’s therapy sessions, the book can become tedious as they revisit the same struggles continuously.

Final rate: 3.25 ⭐️

Thanks to NetGalley and Baek Sehee for this advanced copy of I Want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki in exchange for an honest review. I honestly had very high hopes for this book: this is one of my favorite titles of a book ever. VERY relatable. Unfortunately I made it just about half way through before calling it quits.

This is a collection of transcribed therapy sessions between the author and her therapist, with little thoughts or nuggets of wisdom she has learned interspersed in between. I found it to be rather dull and repetitive. Maybe if I was someone who had never experienced how talk therapy helps reframe thoughts and belief patterns, it might be really cool to have a firsthand account of it, breaking the stigma and seeing how it might help me. I have gone through a bunch of therapy though (yay) and had a hard time picking it back up to read.

I was also disappointed at the lack of tteokbokki mentions? It makes for a great title and she mentions at the beginning that she uses food as a coping mechanism but, as of halfway through, hasn’t circled back to it. I was just hoping there would be more of a food theme through out but alas. I am not going to force myself to try and finish :(

Unfortunately I couldn’t get into this book. I wasn’t a fan of the transcript style. Thanks for letting me check it out!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki.

Not surprisingly, the title is what caught my eye. I'm not a fan of nonfiction or memoirs but I was intrigued by the premise.

Told through transcripts with her psychiatrist, Sehee is struggling emotionally, psychologically and mentally with personal issues relating to her family, her relationships and her work.

On one hand, I commend Sehee for realizing she needed professional help and her mental illness was disrupting her life and career.

On the other hand, Sehee's memoir made it sound like she's not depressed, she just doesn't have self-esteem.

I know both things go hand in hand but some of Sehee's observations and reasons behind why she acts the way she does made me shake my head; she sounded very young and immature when she made certain observations.

I would have liked to see more time spent delving into Sehee's relationship with her family, which I believe is the crux of her low self esteem.

Her childhood, her parents and siblings, and the environment she grew up in had and continues has most profound impact on her behavior, personality and feelings.

All of us struggle with negative thoughts; fear rejection, struggle with family and personal drama and professional issues, and Sehee is very brave for penning this memoir and letting others know they're not alone in feeling this way.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for offering me an eARC of this novel, however, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Honestly, I also want to eat tteokbokki, but yeah, I get that having the munchies for specific things can roll hand in hand with depression. For me, it’s usually potato chips or beef jerky. I like salty things, what can I say? This part self-help book and part-memoir written as sessions with a therapist, while interesting failed to endear me. It wasn’t bad, but it just wasn’t something that spoke to me on the level that I was hoping that it would. However, I think that this book could help people who are afraid to talk to a psychiatrist in figuring out their not alone with whatever mental anguish they have.

I think part of the reason this book didn’t speak to me is the formatting. The psychiatrist transcripts made me want more information about the character, or I suppose Sehee. She also felt overly dramatic and high maintenance. I understand that she is mentally unwell, but she honestly just made me feel exhausted. I think this was suppose to help my mental health versus hinder it more. I’m glad that this can help people learn about self-esteem, depression, toxic relationships, and other mental health issues, but this was overall not as impactful as I was hoping.

I guess my key takeaway is that there is only one of you in the world and even when you feel like giving up, it is important to find something to keep you going even if it is only spicy rice cakes. The things you love allow you a much needed balance in life. I think various aspects of this will speak to a lot of people, but it just didn’t speak to me as much as I wanted. If they translate the second book I may read it, but I won’t make any promises.

This was an interesting memoir. I will be honest, the title is what drew me in first so I wasn’t aware it was also a self help book. I’ve never one before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I did like the book however as the author explains her struggles with anxiety and her fight with depression that I found myself being able to relate. I liked the manuscripts of the sessions she had but I do wish there wasn’t so much of them or took over as much. I do understand why they were added though and it definitely made this book different.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for the ARC of this!

Told in mostly back and forth dialogue between the author and her therapist, this was extremely relatable as someone with anxiety and ADHD. If anything, I wish I was this self-aware, as sometimes I don’t even know what I’m worried about or notice patterns that I could try to break free of. I’d recommend this to people who maybe want to understand anxiety and gain insight, or those who want to see they are not alone in their anxieties and get some tips in the form of the author’s therapist’s responses.

i almost never read self-help books, but this title intrigued me and bts recommended it, so i decided to give it a shot.

marketed as part memoir and part self-help; i want to die but i want to eat tteokbokki is the author's honest and intimate look into her personal journey with mental health -- specifically with dysthymia. the novel consists of a transcript of her conversations with her psychiatrist. the author recorded 12 weeks of her sessions and included her thoughts and reflections throughout the novel. it felt like i was sitting in on her therapy sessions, which at times felt like i was intruding. but there were so many of the struggles that baek sehee voices out that were all too relatable for me -- from feeling like you have no right to complain because someone has it worse than you, to loving others but not knowing how to love yourself in the same way. i think that regardless of where you may be on your mental health journey; these are thoughts and feelings that have appeared at least once in your life. i commend the author for writing this novel and being so vulnerable to talk about a topic that is still largely taboo in Korea.

this is a short read but i found i had to pace myself in order to digest the contents properly. while there isn't anything new or groundbreaking i learned from reading this novel; i think it's a comforting read for people to know that they are not alone in their feelings and journey to self-love. i also recommend it for those who want to be a better ally for mental health.

thank you netgalley and Bloomsbury publishing for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is an interesting novel which chronicles a person battling depression and their recorded interactions with their therapist during the course of multiple therapy sessions. This novel is a real-life account of an individual’s experiences with depression and the story provides very insightful messages on how depression, life experiences and our ways of thinking can impact our behaviors.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book which I enjoyed was the therapist’s “epilogue”. It was an extremely fascinating take on a story of self-reflection. Many lessons within the dialogue between patient and doctor were relatable and could be applied to anyone’s life. The method in which the story read was also extremely enjoyable, which was a screenplay type format.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys self-help or health and wellness nonfiction.

I did not enjoy this, and I really regret requesting it. I was intrigued by the title and expected a motivational memoir but instead got what felt like an uneasy look into her own private sessions.

There were several instances where I felt like an intruder instead of a reader. To me, the book would’ve been more successful if I heard from the author instead of her psychiatrist.

I didn't love the transcript feel to the discussions with the therapist. I wish there was more of an essay form, with that dialogue sprinkled in.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
The title and cover of this book are attention grabbing. The premise of the book is interesting. But I didn't care for the writing style and felt like most of the book was transcript of her therapy appointments. Bits and pieces of the essays were relatable and I think a lot of people could see themselves in some of the situations.
Overall, pretty good translation.

Thank you to Bloomsbury USA for the ARC! I found the premise of this book to be really enticing, but the format and the formality of the translation made it feel like I was reading an AI transcript. I really liked the essays in the epilogue session and wish I could’ve seen more of that type of writing in the book. I’m excited to see what else this author has in store in the future though!