Review: I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

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Hello bookish friends! I’m back with a review for a book that I was soo looking forward to reading when my NetGalley request was approved: I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee. Did I request the book specifically for the title? Possibly. That’s unconfirmed.

PLOT

Marketed as a self-help therapy memoir, this book follows the author, Baek, through 12 weeks of therapy as she tries to uncover the cause of her depressive mood, anxiety, and feelings of hopelessnesses.

NO-SPOILER REVIEW

I really wanted to like this book so much. I’m basically primed to love most memoirs, especially when they involved mental health issues. The formatting and style of this one just didn’t work for me. Almost the entirety of the book is straight up transcripts from the author’s therapy sessions. Not a direct quote from the book, but to give you an idea, nearly every page looks like this:

Psychiatrist: Did you think about what we discussed before?

Me: Yes, I did, but I still don’t know what to do exactly.

Psychiatrist: Well, have you thought of the various outcomes of each decision?

Me: Yes, I have, but… (two paragraphs about a very specific decision making process the author thought through)

I’m so proud of this journey to recovery that Baek went on, but it’s just not compelling to read someone else’s rather mundane therapy session transcripts. It’s not that readers won’t be able to relate to some of the things Baek is going through, but I don’t find this book to be a memoir nor a self-help book somehow.

It doesn’t have enough self-reflection or closure to qualify as a memoir for me, but someone else’s personalized therapy is not fitting as a self-help process for the general public. It’s specific to one person, and if I’m being quite frank, I don’t think the therapist did the best job of identifying what was going on with Baek.

My remaining hope is that some people will read this book and it will destigmatize therapy for them so they can seek personalized help for themselves. As far as this book working as a memoir or self-help book — neither for me, unfortunately.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.