A Living Remedy: A Memoir
Ratings3
Average rating4
15
Ratings3
Average rating4
A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 from: Dallas Morning News * Today.com * Good Housekeeping * Time * The Rumpus * The Week * Salon * Seattle Times * Electric Literature * Bookpage * The Millions * Elle.com * Washington Post * Book Riot * Lit Hub * NPR's Here & Now * Ms. Magazine * Town & Country * New York Times * USA Today * Sunset From the bestselling author of ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW comes a searing memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she’s lost. In this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you’d hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them. Nicole Chung couldn’t hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found community and a path to the life she'd long wanted. But the middle class world she begins to raise a family in – where there are big homes, college funds, nice vacations – looks very different from the middle class world she thought she grew up in, where paychecks have to stretch to the end of the week, health insurance is often lacking, and there are no safety nets. When her father dies at only sixty-seven, killed by diabetes and kidney disease, Nicole feels deep grief as well as rage, knowing that years of precarity and lack of access to healthcare contributed to his early death. And then the unthinkable happens – less than a year later, her beloved mother is diagnosed with cancer, and the physical distance between them becomes insurmountable as COVID-19 descends upon the world. Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, A Living Remedy examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another – and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and grievous inequalities in American society.
Reviews with the most likes.
Once again, I am reminded that maybe I should read the blurb before picking up a book (and still I will continue to not do so 95% of the time because I never learn) because I'm not sure it was a good time for me to read a memoir that's a lot about losing parents.
If you're looking for an adoption story from the perspective of the adopted child that isn't about either demonizing or glorifying adoption this one would be a good choice (adoption isn't necessarily the center of things here but it is an important factor).
Cancer features quite heavily as well as loss in the time of Covid lockdowns (which were treated with a refreshing openness and sense of it is what it is which I found really agreeable).
No rating because I don't rate memoirs.
I feel physically sick to my stomach and my whole body hurts from crying. this took me through the fucking ringer, making me weep for these strangers as well as for my own father now a year and a half gone as well as for my mother who is still around but who i find myself spontaneously crying over a night because dealing with one parents death has left me utterly crippled by the facts of death and how it comes for all of us, even for the ones you love and cant imagine being without. grief is so complex and so individual but there is something warm and comforting about sharing in someone elses, seeing parts of your own mourning reflected back and feeling connected to someone hundreds of miles away that you've never met all because you've shared in this specific kind of loss together, one that we will all have to wade through eventually. but not alone, even if all you've got is a connection through text on a page
This book was so perfect for me at this time. A friend bought this book for me when I was struggling with a very difficult situation. My dad was in the hospital and the doctors said he needed to go into a facility. He became combative and was very confused. It is so hard to be so very far away and unable to help my siblings. I live in Alaska and my dad was in Georgia. I have my own health problems too and making that long trip alone was not a possibility for me. I knew I needed to plan a trip soon or it would be too late but he died a lot sooner than anyone expected. I ended up getting there for his funeral instead. Nicole Chung delt with a similar thing but she lost both parents close together. I started reading this book when my dad was in the hospital and finished it on the plane to Georgia. It was a very emotional read for me but it is a book I will go back to. I am glad I have this book on my kindle so I was able to highlight lines I want to go back to.
