I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki: A Memoir

By Baek Se-hee and Se Hee Baek

Book Overview

The New York Times bestselling therapy memoir translated by International Booker shortlistee Anton Hur.

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 judgmental of others. She hides her feelings well at work, but 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 favorite street food: the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?

Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a twelve-week period, and expanding on each session with her own reflective micro-essays, Baek begins to disentangle the harmful behaviors 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 the first book in a duology to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1635579384
• ISBN13: 9781635579383
• Release Date: November 2022
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Hits different now

I was midway through reading this book when the author died. It tinged the remaining pages in a sense of melancholy. While I didn’t relate to all of her struggles, several hit close to home and made me reflect on my own journey with therapy. Also, it made me try tteokbokki and I really enjoy it. In changed my life in a small way and I am thankful for it.

Worth the read

If you're currently going to or have been to therapy, this is an insightful book and you should read it.