Trigger warning: mentions suicide. If you need help or know anyone who does, you can find helplines from around the world at bit.ly/helplineshotlines.

There’s something calming about reading a bestseller after the hype around it has cooled. When something sucks up all the space around you—like a viral meme, or depression—it can be hard to process things objectively. You need time and distance from the noise to regain your orientation. That’s why I watched Breaking Bad twelve years after its release. It’s also why I’d put off reading Baek Sehee’s hit therapy diary I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki—“recommended by BTS’s RM”—until this magazine asked me to review it.

I have mixed feelings about memoirs on depression. I appreciate their role in ‘creating awareness’. But reading them often gives me the uneasy feeling of being a spectator at the Pain Olympics. The publishing industry likes visceral accounts of suffering and rousing tales of healing. As Baek writes, “The world tends to focus too much on the very bright or the very dark.” Her book steers clear of both extremes. For this alone, it merits attention.

• Tags: Issue 31, South Korea, Tanmoy Goswami