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I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki
Cover of I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki
I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki
The cult hit that everyone is talking about
Borrow Borrow
_______________

THE PHENOMENAL KOREAN BESTSELLER
TRANSLATED BY INTERNATIONAL BOOKER SHORTLISTEE ANTON HUR

'Will strike a chord with anyone who feels that their public life is at odds with how they really feel inside.'
- Red

PSYCHIATRIST: So how can I help you?


ME: I don't know, I'm – what's the word – depressed? Do I have to go into detail?


Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her – what to call it? – depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgemental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends; adept at performing the calmness, even ease, her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can't be normal.
But if she's so hopeless, why can she always summon a desire for her favourite street food, the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?
Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a 12-week period, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions and harmful behaviours that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness.
_______________

THE PHENOMENAL KOREAN BESTSELLER
TRANSLATED BY INTERNATIONAL BOOKER SHORTLISTEE ANTON HUR

'Will strike a chord with anyone who feels that their public life is at odds with how they really feel inside.'
- Red

PSYCHIATRIST: So how can I help you?


ME: I don't know, I'm – what's the word – depressed? Do I have to go into detail?


Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her – what to call it? – depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgemental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends; adept at performing the calmness, even ease, her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can't be normal.
But if she's so hopeless, why can she always summon a desire for her favourite street food, the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?
Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a 12-week period, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions and harmful behaviours that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness.
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Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    July 4, 2022
    In this candid if stilted debut, South Korean essayist Sehee documents the intensive therapy sessions that led her out of depression and anxiety. She starts from the first appointment she had with her psychiatrist, chronicling her struggles to find a medication that will ease her symptoms as she works, between sessions, to apply what she’s learning, challenging herself to be more socially engaged with others, whether it be through attending a movie club or negotiating difficult disagreements with friends. Though heartfelt, the forced neatness of Sehee’s diaristic installments feels unnatural when juxtaposed with the complicated interior life that she and her psychiatrist trawl for meaning. Sehee’s emotional recollections of growing up in an abusive household, struggling with self image, and turning to books as she learns to embrace solitude lose their potential poignancy when reconstructed in dialogue with her therapist: “ME: I’m also obsessive about my looks. There was a time I would never leave the house without make-up.... PSYCHIATRIST: It’s not your looks themselves that generate your obsessiveness.” As a result, profound subjects like the stigma of suicide are lost in the weeds of the monotonous stretches that surround references to them. Sehee’s mission to normalize conversation about mental illness is an admirable one, but this memoir fails to animate that goal.

  • Cosmopolitan An eye-opening view into a person's most vulnerable moments in a new way
  • Kirkus Reviews At once personal and universal, this book is about finding a path to awareness, understanding, and wisdom.
  • Publishers Weekly Candid ... heartfelt ... Sehee's mission to normalize conversation about mental illness is an admirable one.
  • Library Journal Sehee is honest and authentic throughout ... [I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki] will resonate with young people who suffer from similar forms of depression and anxiety.
  • Chicago Tribune Earnest ... clever ... [Baek Sehee] uses months of (real) transcripts from her therapy sessions to explore her own depression and anxiety, always tiptoeing toward something like self-awareness.
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    Bloomsbury Publishing
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I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki
I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki
The cult hit that everyone is talking about
Baek Sehee
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