really interesting memoir and story about a woman raised in Korea and now living in America as an adult. very unique, i liked this book (feels weird to say i loved it because it's full of a lot of suffering and shame but yes i loved it too).

Thanks to NetGalley & Little, Brown, and Company for the ARC!

Youngmi Mayer’s "I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying" is an absolute tour de force—a brilliant memoir from an author who couldn’t care less about whether or not you think she’s smart.

That might sound like an odd thing to lead with, but Mayer herself does so. She opens the book by opining that there have been countless, pointless books from countless, pointless white men, so she shouldn’t need a reason for a memoir. She almost invites readers to dismiss her confidence as unearned, but that’s the point—she doesn’t need to earn confidence.

It’s her right.

This mindset allows her to write one of the most incisive and thoughtful memoirs in recent memory because she doesn’t need it to adhere to any genre tropes. There’s no impulse to retrofit history to her current image or depict herself as some sort of demigod moving through crazy, memorable events. She has a clear awareness of her unique positionality as an Asian-American who didn’t grow up in the United States, but that distinctive doesn’t lend itself to self-promotion. Instead, it creates an opportunity to throw Korean and American culture into stark juxtaposition, but never in that sickly sweet way where a narrator seemingly exists to share lessons with a white audience. Mayer has no interest in offering herself to white readers for the feelgood catharsis of feeling bad. In fact, this is a memoir that is selective about when it reveals its author because it has bigger things on its mind.

It’s such a refreshing subversion of the genre. I tire of books that condemn white patriarchal publishing norms while seeming desperate to conform to them—stories that follow the same tired arc. Mayer—again—just does not care about the book’s palatability, and there’s something energizing and freeing every time an anecdote is included even when it “doesn’t make sense.” It doesn’t need to.

Truth doesn’t always make sense.

This is a structural and tonal masterpiece as well. As the focus often shifts away from the author, the book spirals inward, moving recursively through memories, Korean history, and myth, all while never spinning its wheels. Mayer has so much control over every rhetorical move, but she refuses to entertain a writerly ego; she’s too busy with more important matters. She writes with a crassness that might grate against some people, but it serves a purpose—to remind readers that the book isn’t about them or their tastes. The author has lived a lot of life, but she’s intentional about the information she shares and withholds. There are moments of pain where lesser writers would dramatically self-flagellate, but Mayer pulls back—they belong to her, not the reader.

I think the book’s biggest success, however, is Mayer’s mesmerizing ability to pivot from flippancy to razor sharp analysis within the space of a few words. As a few notable examples, she contrasts the harsh reality of her family selling Kool-Aid to survive with how wealthy children cosplay poverty through lemonade stands. She writes about how the thrill of stand-up is that it’s pathetic, even when you’re good at it. She explores how poverty is moralized as a mark of original sin. It’s all just so smart at every turn, but it’s written with the understanding that even such reflection can easily become its own kind of self-indulgence.

I could go on, but I think it’s best to let the book speak for herself. I really hope "I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying" gets the attention it deserves, and I hope it means that we’ll get to see more of Youngmi Mayer’s exciting work as an author.

A phenomenally written memoir that will make you laugh out loud and contemplate life choices. Hilariously narrated and soulfully written for any audience willing to learn about being Korean American. If we weren’t in an Orwellian predicted society where bad language could prevent millions from enjoying this necessary read, I’m dying to have permission to use this in my classroom!

This was a devastating and darkly hilarious memoir. Mayer has a gift for painting a vivid picture with her words. If anything, I wanted this book to be longer, to go more in depth in certain subjects and themes.

Arriving at an author through their dark, chaotic, amazing instagram presence is not the usual course of events for me, but I was extremely excited to come to know Youngmi Mayer through a different medium. Mayer alludes to her complex relationship with her parents with whom she shares a deep love but also deep trauma. Her unsparing discussion of topics like parental abuse in many forms as well as other struggles in her adult life lead to deep revelations about the way that she has claimed her selfhood. The book opens with the origins of Mayer's mother's family and the ways that colonialism, postwar poverty and Korean culture in general permeate every ounce of her existence. Parts of her family story were told so compellingly, I remember feeling like I wanted them to be a novel in and of themselves. Mayer's unpretentious and honest commentary on her family story really pulls the reader in and out of these powerful moments in a way that is very readable. As Mayer chronicles the difficult relationship she had with her parents and how shame and poverty impacted her upbringing, she is able to examine it with a lens of wider understanding. Throughout the book she also makes really insightful observations about the way race, class and identity work. Mayer touches on tenants of buddhism and Korean culture sometimes delving into deeply philosophical territory when discussing how individuals relate to themselves, their families and their societies, but also shares incredibly specific stories that are at turns humorous, then painful, but almost always both. I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying is funny, smart, touching, sad, deeply personal but also in many ways, universal. It embodies the notion of Laughing and Crying as a way to understand the simultaneous joy and pain we experience in our lives. So metal.

In this memoir, Youngmi jokes through the retelling of her childhood as an offbeat biracial kid in Saipan. She jokes through her difficult adolescence where she must parent her own a mother who married a man simply because he looked like white Jesus. She also discusses her family’s experience through the last century of colonialism and war in Korea, while reflecting how years later, their wounds affect her adult life in New York City.

One of the biggest overarching themes I picked up from the book was this theme of duality: being praised for losing weight by friends and family, but being criticized for having an ego around “being skinny” to be a model; not being fully seen as both Korean and White, but also being seen as only Korean or only White depending on her audience; wanting to blend in among her peers while also being forced to stand out whenever her White father was around. Mayer beautifully blends Korean history with her own experience to give us some education and much needed context.

This was my first Advanced Reader Copy from @NetGally – thank you for the copy and thank you to Little, Brown & Company (@littlebrown).

I received a copy of the book "I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying" from NetGalley. Youngmi Mayer is a standup comedian. She writes of growing up in Korea and Saipan. She writes of being a bi-racial girl. with a Caucasian father and Korean mother. Although she writes of her life with a sense of humor she had a very tough childhood. Her mother could be very blunt and cruel { never having anything positive to say} Kids at school could be mean to her. She moved many times over her childhood. in her late teens she ended up in America. She eventually became a stand up comic using her difficult childhood and adult years in her act. Even though she wrote this book with humor it is sometimes tough for me to read feeling sympathy for her. The title of the Book comes from a quote she learned in life that you can be "laughing because you are crying" when a person can be heartbreaking but laughing at the same time. A pretty good read. like I mentioned sometimes hard to read about the obstacles that Youngmi Mayer had in life.