I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokbokki

Written by Baek Se-Hee
Translated by Anton Hur

The South Korean hit memoir recommended by BTS's RM, this is the author's attempt to spot her own patterns and habits through a faithful chronicle of her therapy sessions

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 208

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Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her 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.

Read this if you: want a free trial session of therapy.