In Limbo

In Limbo is an incredibly moving, and at times very heavy memoir that I couldn't put down. This book follows Lee's teen years, showcasing the combination of not only her specific experiences as a young Korean immigrant—dealing with a mother who asks too much, a cultural identity she feels both distanced from and burdened by, and the relentless racism and bullying she faces—but also the widely-felt pain of being an alienated teen with mental illness and without many friends to lean on. I related way too well to some of Deborah's struggles, especially with her mental illness and her very small group of friends to whom she attached herself too strongly (leaving her destitute when any one of them pulled away or slighted her in real or imagined ways). There was one moment where she was spiraling into a panic over the idea that her best friend had “replaced” her with other friends, and all I could do was sigh quietly to myself, because gods, hadn't I been there before in my teen years?Not only that, but watching her struggle with her relationship with her mother was brutal at times. Like I said, this is a heavy read and not much is left to the imagination when it comes to Lee's mother's verbal or physical abuse. Overall, I have to be honest and say that In Limbo is mostly a fairly bleak memoir without a lot of bright spots or hope peeking through, but it is a memoir, and I respect and admire the fact that the author was so honest and didn't sugarcoat things in the end.Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.✨ Representation: Deborah Jung-Jin Lee, her family members, and a couple of side characters are Korean✨ Content warnings for: racism, verbal abuse, physical abuse, bullying, self-harm, suicide attempts, depression, anxiety, fat-shaming, body-shaming, medical content, descriptions of plastic surgery ———twitter booktok bookstagram blog