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Stay True
Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Memoir & Autobiography (2022)From the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, a gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art.
In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken--with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity--is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes 'zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn't seem to have a place for either of them.
But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the textbook successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet.
Determined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends--his memories--Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he's been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.
In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken--with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity--is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes 'zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn't seem to have a place for either of them.
But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the textbook successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet.
Determined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends--his memories--Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he's been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published September 27, 2022
3,106 people are currently reading
86.5k people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 5,911 reviews
May 20, 2023
The weird thing about being in Asian American studies is that you always forget yours isn't the first radical generation.
What do you think?
What do you think?
October 1, 2022
Finished this one with tears in the back of my eyes and a bittersweet heaviness in my chest. In Stay True, Hua Hsu writes about his close bond with his Japanese American college friend Ken, as well as Ken’s untimely, awful murder in a carjacking. Though most of the memoir revolves around Hsu’s memories of his friendship with Ken, it also describes what Hsu learns when he goes to therapy after Ken’s death and begins to let go of his feelings of guilt surrounding Ken’s passing.
I loved how this book focused on a friendship between two Asian American men without solely being about being Asian American. Hsu shows us the small, everyday intimacies of friendship that he experienced with Ken � watching movies together, laughing about strangers on the internet side by side in their dorm, sharing about their dreams for the future with one another. I whispered “oh my goodness, I am so sad� to myself when I read about Hsu’s grieving process after Ken’s death, like how he still wrote to Ken about his day-to-day life and how when Hsu moved to Boston � where Ken always imagined himself going after college � he imagined the outline of Ken at a baseball game, selling concessions while going to law school. Ugh, my heart!
I think people who grew up in the 90’s and/or are familiar with the Berkeley, California area may get an extra kick out of this memoir. I was born in 1995 on the east coast so I didn’t recognize a lot of what Hsu wrote about on a personal level, though I appreciated the general high quality of his writing. The memoir flowed well; I felt immersed in it. At times I felt that Hsu talked about some subjects that came across as a bit random to me, though I recognize that those subjects were often a part of his upbringing and/or his college experience.
Overall, wow, what a memoir. I love witnessing Asian American men write about their relationships, their messy emotional moments, and going to therapy. What makes me most enthused about Stay True is that it’s such a beautiful tribute to Hua Hsu’s college friend Ken. One of my best friends, who I met in college, texted me while I was writing this review and I almost started crying. Definitely a book that makes you remember what’s important in life and to cherish the moments with the people you love.
I loved how this book focused on a friendship between two Asian American men without solely being about being Asian American. Hsu shows us the small, everyday intimacies of friendship that he experienced with Ken � watching movies together, laughing about strangers on the internet side by side in their dorm, sharing about their dreams for the future with one another. I whispered “oh my goodness, I am so sad� to myself when I read about Hsu’s grieving process after Ken’s death, like how he still wrote to Ken about his day-to-day life and how when Hsu moved to Boston � where Ken always imagined himself going after college � he imagined the outline of Ken at a baseball game, selling concessions while going to law school. Ugh, my heart!
I think people who grew up in the 90’s and/or are familiar with the Berkeley, California area may get an extra kick out of this memoir. I was born in 1995 on the east coast so I didn’t recognize a lot of what Hsu wrote about on a personal level, though I appreciated the general high quality of his writing. The memoir flowed well; I felt immersed in it. At times I felt that Hsu talked about some subjects that came across as a bit random to me, though I recognize that those subjects were often a part of his upbringing and/or his college experience.
Overall, wow, what a memoir. I love witnessing Asian American men write about their relationships, their messy emotional moments, and going to therapy. What makes me most enthused about Stay True is that it’s such a beautiful tribute to Hua Hsu’s college friend Ken. One of my best friends, who I met in college, texted me while I was writing this review and I almost started crying. Definitely a book that makes you remember what’s important in life and to cherish the moments with the people you love.
August 25, 2024
i went into this book totallyÌýblind, an incredible experience i really, really advise against.
(if you choose not to heed that warning, by the way, stop reading now.) (in other words, plot summary ahead.)
all i knew going in was that this was an award-winning memoir, and as i read a hundred pages of 90s culture and college memories and idyllic california scenery i lulled myself into a false sense of security. i fell in love with our author, hua hsu, and his friend ken, and their attemptsÌýto be cool and unbothered while being earnest and loving to the core.
and then the actual event happens, and i was so surprised and so upset that tears sprang suddenly to my eyes.
this is not a perfect book. like grief, it meanders, doubles back on itself, feels both mundane and unpredictable. and it really, really captures all of it.
bottom line: a hard read i recommend.
----------------
tbr review
clout chasing (reading award winners)
(if you choose not to heed that warning, by the way, stop reading now.) (in other words, plot summary ahead.)
all i knew going in was that this was an award-winning memoir, and as i read a hundred pages of 90s culture and college memories and idyllic california scenery i lulled myself into a false sense of security. i fell in love with our author, hua hsu, and his friend ken, and their attemptsÌýto be cool and unbothered while being earnest and loving to the core.
and then the actual event happens, and i was so surprised and so upset that tears sprang suddenly to my eyes.
this is not a perfect book. like grief, it meanders, doubles back on itself, feels both mundane and unpredictable. and it really, really captures all of it.
bottom line: a hard read i recommend.
----------------
tbr review
clout chasing (reading award winners)
December 12, 2022
This was a rather difficult read. Only in the last page, does Hua really say something that I struggled with the books narration from the get go - Hua saying he is legendarily self-involved. I know the book is about coming of age, friendship, loss, grief, but unfortunately Hua self-involved approach can really take away the reader from having any meaningful engagement with this book. I recently have been looking into the concepts of self-critical and involved vs. self compassion, the former really can be all consuming (which this book suffers from - in its monotonous approach), vs. The latter that can acknowledge your own self, but also allows to look outward, with depth and clarity, this I felt only really happen near the end of the book.
This may be a difficult review but I’ll do it nonetheless to make sense of my own discomfort and why - Ken, the beloved friend who was murdered in a carjacking, felt like a passerby in Hua’s recollections. I wonder if this is intentional, and maybe it is, because of him acknowledging the self-involved notion, but I felt like Ken was not sketched out and was only given a very vague impression of his existence. Which is frustrating, because clearly they both admired each other, and I still don’t think I have much understanding of who Ken really was, only what he may have been to Hua - but in the self-involved way (where people just happen to drop / be in your story, that’s it).
My other theory, which feels plausible, is that, this is Hua quite literally putting himself back in to the space and mind he was back then (before the murder), in which case, these trite observations and understanding of the world, makes sense give the literal coming of age in the pages. This is extremely true, as after Ken’s brutal murder, we as readers see Hua’s growth and grapple with notions and ideas beyond the surface level understanding (e.g. what if it was his fault?).
The last 30 pages or so, the book really comes together to depict Hua as someone really diving outside himself, accepting different truths can exist, without his need to have the better truth vs. others.
I would like to reread this book sometime in the future, when I hope I’ll be ready to really see this rather fragmented story telling in a different light.
This may be a difficult review but I’ll do it nonetheless to make sense of my own discomfort and why - Ken, the beloved friend who was murdered in a carjacking, felt like a passerby in Hua’s recollections. I wonder if this is intentional, and maybe it is, because of him acknowledging the self-involved notion, but I felt like Ken was not sketched out and was only given a very vague impression of his existence. Which is frustrating, because clearly they both admired each other, and I still don’t think I have much understanding of who Ken really was, only what he may have been to Hua - but in the self-involved way (where people just happen to drop / be in your story, that’s it).
My other theory, which feels plausible, is that, this is Hua quite literally putting himself back in to the space and mind he was back then (before the murder), in which case, these trite observations and understanding of the world, makes sense give the literal coming of age in the pages. This is extremely true, as after Ken’s brutal murder, we as readers see Hua’s growth and grapple with notions and ideas beyond the surface level understanding (e.g. what if it was his fault?).
The last 30 pages or so, the book really comes together to depict Hua as someone really diving outside himself, accepting different truths can exist, without his need to have the better truth vs. others.
I would like to reread this book sometime in the future, when I hope I’ll be ready to really see this rather fragmented story telling in a different light.
September 10, 2022
I really loved this. It is, in many ways, just what I want a memoir to be. It's contained, it never feels like it's condensing or covering too much ground or jumping ahead. It's focused on a few major themes. And it was incredibly immersive, thanks to Hsu's journals from the time, packed with the kinds of details that help you really get into a time and place. And, of course, it has a strong emotional grounding.
In this type of story, which involves the untimely death of a close friend, it can be hard not to be maudlin. Hsu gets it just right, keeping you deeply tied to his perspective, the ways he thought about and worked through his grief, never trying to turn it into something metaphorical. Quite the opposite, at one point he is upset when someone suggests a story on his friend's death for a publication he works for, hating the idea of this deeply personal loss converted to a generic news story for the masses.
Usually I prefer straightforward prose, it's how I think and how I write and it just meshes more easily in my brain. Hsu can be more lyrical, but I loved it. There is such an emotional honesty here, a commitment to show us things just as he saw them in his teens and early 20's, a stubborn contrarianism that he presents to us without hedging or apology. This is part of what made the book so immersive for me, was getting back into that teenage way of thinking, that period of self-definition where you don't really know the self you're defining or how to do it. It really got me in that headspace, even though Hsu's experience was quite different from my own.
My college experience was not typical, at a very religious school, and I've read plenty of books and watched plenty of movies with a more regular college setting. And yet, something about this book made me feel like I finally was tapped into it. Maybe it was doing it on audio, which tends to be more immersive for me. But I really felt like I got to go through a lot of it with Hsu, especially how it was to be on a campus like Berkeley and have a kind of awakening of identity, of politics, of self. Not in a big radical way, but in a slow and quiet way where the world and yourself just start to open up to you.
I love a focused and contained memoir, but the hardest thing about them is that because of that focus they always end too soon for me. I always want more. It's a good thing. Here Hsu has such a poignant and meaningful work about youth and friendship and identity. We throw the phrase "coming-of-age" around a lot but you really feel it here.
My favorite parts were the letters from Hsu's father, who spends portions of the book back in Taiwan. Always ending with "What do you think?"
In this type of story, which involves the untimely death of a close friend, it can be hard not to be maudlin. Hsu gets it just right, keeping you deeply tied to his perspective, the ways he thought about and worked through his grief, never trying to turn it into something metaphorical. Quite the opposite, at one point he is upset when someone suggests a story on his friend's death for a publication he works for, hating the idea of this deeply personal loss converted to a generic news story for the masses.
Usually I prefer straightforward prose, it's how I think and how I write and it just meshes more easily in my brain. Hsu can be more lyrical, but I loved it. There is such an emotional honesty here, a commitment to show us things just as he saw them in his teens and early 20's, a stubborn contrarianism that he presents to us without hedging or apology. This is part of what made the book so immersive for me, was getting back into that teenage way of thinking, that period of self-definition where you don't really know the self you're defining or how to do it. It really got me in that headspace, even though Hsu's experience was quite different from my own.
My college experience was not typical, at a very religious school, and I've read plenty of books and watched plenty of movies with a more regular college setting. And yet, something about this book made me feel like I finally was tapped into it. Maybe it was doing it on audio, which tends to be more immersive for me. But I really felt like I got to go through a lot of it with Hsu, especially how it was to be on a campus like Berkeley and have a kind of awakening of identity, of politics, of self. Not in a big radical way, but in a slow and quiet way where the world and yourself just start to open up to you.
I love a focused and contained memoir, but the hardest thing about them is that because of that focus they always end too soon for me. I always want more. It's a good thing. Here Hsu has such a poignant and meaningful work about youth and friendship and identity. We throw the phrase "coming-of-age" around a lot but you really feel it here.
My favorite parts were the letters from Hsu's father, who spends portions of the book back in Taiwan. Always ending with "What do you think?"
January 27, 2023
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This memoir is definitely all about the vibes. Hua Hsu captures the aesthetics and culture that characterized his college experiences. Hsu recollects the music, clothes, and cultural influences that shaped this time in his life. The memoir is also about his unlikely friendship with Ken, someone whose tastes didn’t really match Hsu's. The two nevertheless become friends and Hsu relates some of their shared escapades. After Ken’s murder, the memoir adopts a more sombre tone, as Hsu renders on the page his own grief as well as those of the people around him.
I honestly wanted to love this a lot more than I did. Hsu spends too much time discussing his hobby and interests and not enough time fleshing out or conveying the personalities of the people who characterized his college days. I would have liked less talk about aesthetics and more about friendship tbh. While Hsu does explore grief, he also uses that same section of the memoir to do a lot of college talk that failed to enthuse me. I liked it when he spoke about his calls with his father and the way he captures the atmosphere of that specific period of time. Nevertheless, I wanted something with more of a bite. This was an easy enough read, which is odd given the subject matter. Hsu, I don’t know you, and I’m sure you were being slightly self-deprecating, however, the college self you present in this memoir gave me some serious Not Like Other Guys vibes and that is just not my vibe. He is an alternative, he likes wearing vintage clothes, and wearing band tees (of course, unlike other people he listens to those bands), he is into zines…you get the drift. I’m sure this memoir will resonate with a lot of readers but sadly I found its portrayal of friendship somewhat of a let-down.
This memoir is definitely all about the vibes. Hua Hsu captures the aesthetics and culture that characterized his college experiences. Hsu recollects the music, clothes, and cultural influences that shaped this time in his life. The memoir is also about his unlikely friendship with Ken, someone whose tastes didn’t really match Hsu's. The two nevertheless become friends and Hsu relates some of their shared escapades. After Ken’s murder, the memoir adopts a more sombre tone, as Hsu renders on the page his own grief as well as those of the people around him.
I honestly wanted to love this a lot more than I did. Hsu spends too much time discussing his hobby and interests and not enough time fleshing out or conveying the personalities of the people who characterized his college days. I would have liked less talk about aesthetics and more about friendship tbh. While Hsu does explore grief, he also uses that same section of the memoir to do a lot of college talk that failed to enthuse me. I liked it when he spoke about his calls with his father and the way he captures the atmosphere of that specific period of time. Nevertheless, I wanted something with more of a bite. This was an easy enough read, which is odd given the subject matter. Hsu, I don’t know you, and I’m sure you were being slightly self-deprecating, however, the college self you present in this memoir gave me some serious Not Like Other Guys vibes and that is just not my vibe. He is an alternative, he likes wearing vintage clothes, and wearing band tees (of course, unlike other people he listens to those bands), he is into zines…you get the drift. I’m sure this memoir will resonate with a lot of readers but sadly I found its portrayal of friendship somewhat of a let-down.
January 4, 2023
I'm the same age as Hua Hsu, the author of this memoir. I'm also an asian american (although he's Taiwanese, second generation) and, like him, grew up in the nineties, when the pinnacle of cool consisted of knowing obscure bands before anybody else did (now, there's no point, when everything is streamed at the push of a button). Like him, I also got into zines and the DIY aesthetic and writing. So I'm really the ideal audience for this book, but I felt quite unmoved by it.
Part of the problem is I had no idea wtf this memoir was about!
Was it about his immigrant upbringing and his teenage identity crisis? Or was it about his college friends, especially his friend Ken, who was later (SPOILER) murdered? If it's the latter, then I don't understand why Ken wasn't introduced until after the halfway point of the book, and his murder not brought up until about the last quarter of the book. Or maybe the two parts are connected, because Ken is asian american himself... but Japanese, which is (relatively speaking) the more assimilated version of asian american. But again, I was looking for more depth in this department, because I couldn't quite see a coherent point being made, just an attempt and a miss.
Also, there's no big mystery behind his murder, it's a simple banal crime. So it was all about Hua's feelings of guilt (unwarranted) around the murder, even though it had nothing to do with him, really. It seems a bit self centered to make it all about himself. I'd like to think Hua is at least self aware and poking fun at himself a little about this, but I'm not always sure...
There's some potential with his friendship with Ken: lessons of self growth, of learning that we are more than our manufactured identies of likes and dislikes. Hua's hypocrisy and immaturity is exposed through the friendship. It's a lesson I think he kinda learns throughout the book; Hua grows up, but I don't feel like this was focused on enough, and also I'm not sure he has really internalized this lesson, or if he has, it doesn't show in this memoir... there doesn't seem to be enough deep examination or insight into this to make it convincing or interesting.
The other part of the problem was that the writing was boring. It's the "this happened and then this happened" type of writing style that felt kind of pointless and unending. Why are you telling me all these details about your college friends and what house you moved into when with what roommates, etc? What's the bigger picture here? About 30% or more of the book could have been cut.
There WERE moments of enjoyment, though. For example, I loved that he included the full text of his father's (faxed) letters to him. His father's sweet and earnest messages reminded me of my own parents. He seemed desperate to connect, yet hopelessly of a different generation and mindset. His broken english communicated more than the most perfect english could, and though they probably will never see eye to eye on everything, there's an openness and love there that is refreshing to see in an asian dad (typically very reserved and stern). Maybe the memoir could've been about THAT! But no, that was only a small part of it.
Part of the problem is I had no idea wtf this memoir was about!
Was it about his immigrant upbringing and his teenage identity crisis? Or was it about his college friends, especially his friend Ken, who was later (SPOILER) murdered? If it's the latter, then I don't understand why Ken wasn't introduced until after the halfway point of the book, and his murder not brought up until about the last quarter of the book. Or maybe the two parts are connected, because Ken is asian american himself... but Japanese, which is (relatively speaking) the more assimilated version of asian american. But again, I was looking for more depth in this department, because I couldn't quite see a coherent point being made, just an attempt and a miss.
Also, there's no big mystery behind his murder, it's a simple banal crime. So it was all about Hua's feelings of guilt (unwarranted) around the murder, even though it had nothing to do with him, really. It seems a bit self centered to make it all about himself. I'd like to think Hua is at least self aware and poking fun at himself a little about this, but I'm not always sure...
There's some potential with his friendship with Ken: lessons of self growth, of learning that we are more than our manufactured identies of likes and dislikes. Hua's hypocrisy and immaturity is exposed through the friendship. It's a lesson I think he kinda learns throughout the book; Hua grows up, but I don't feel like this was focused on enough, and also I'm not sure he has really internalized this lesson, or if he has, it doesn't show in this memoir... there doesn't seem to be enough deep examination or insight into this to make it convincing or interesting.
The other part of the problem was that the writing was boring. It's the "this happened and then this happened" type of writing style that felt kind of pointless and unending. Why are you telling me all these details about your college friends and what house you moved into when with what roommates, etc? What's the bigger picture here? About 30% or more of the book could have been cut.
There WERE moments of enjoyment, though. For example, I loved that he included the full text of his father's (faxed) letters to him. His father's sweet and earnest messages reminded me of my own parents. He seemed desperate to connect, yet hopelessly of a different generation and mindset. His broken english communicated more than the most perfect english could, and though they probably will never see eye to eye on everything, there's an openness and love there that is refreshing to see in an asian dad (typically very reserved and stern). Maybe the memoir could've been about THAT! But no, that was only a small part of it.
October 11, 2022
Audiobook�.read by the author, Hua Hsu
�..5 hours and 28 minutes
I started listening to this audiobook at 6 AM, in the dark, beginning a 2 1/2 hour trail walk.
I immediately felt a buzz; electricity running through my body� So excited�
I was back in Berkeley- a college student - taking a long car ride with Hua and his friends.
Right away Hua kept mentioning all these little details that had me jumping for joy� Rum raisin Häagen-Dazs ice cream (I have my own Rum Raisin memories)�
etc.
Hua was such an upbeat enthusiast guy. I was all-in ‘enjoying-hearing� about his about college life�
remembering days that moved slowly�
days that moved quickly�
his classes —science courses math �
his relationship with his dad and his mom�(Taiwanese)
summer lazy days�
the plastics that came from Taiwan that we all remember in the 60s if you lived here in the Bay Area (it was the cheapest food storages we could find)� years moving on—passion for music, (all the great cool music), Tower Records, MTV, Chinatown, Chinese food, Boy Choy, book stores (CODY’S book store in Berkeley, was the greatest�.a huge loss when they closed),
Cupertino, immigration,
Silicon Valley immigrants, the Silicon Valley boom, The corporate ladder, Bubble Tea cafés, noodles, chicken feet, Chinese magazines and books, asian grocery stores, American culture shock, the book ‘Future Shock�, moving around in America, affordable opportunities, Pizza, A fan of the Dallas Cowboys because everybody else in the neighborhood seem to be, unknown Asian-American rights,
searches for experience of Home through technology and classmates and family,
seafood meatballs, giant malls that kept popping up all around town (Valco in Cupertino), ongoing memories, parents who worked hard, parents relic record collection, cello lessons, comic shops in Berkeley, textbooks, friendships, miscellaneous magazines� journalism class,
a mom that was so proud of her son and supported Hua fully�
ongoing miscellaneous trivially, and many new possibilities�
[music being at the center is Hua’s life] � Pearl Jam…etc.
Hua became zealous by everything that he discovered�.
Then …tragedy �..
�..a friend died of a drug overdose�.(heartbreaking for Hua on so many levels)�..
…society pressures were building;
contradictions of life was confusing�
Unease began to color innocence�..
Desegregation, war, sexualization, noticed problems in every generations, the meaning of dysfunction, loss, erratic emotions, and the intention to make a difference being an Asian-American.
But wait�..
MORE ABOUT BERKELEY�.
�.hold your ponies�
“What do you mean the only drawback about UC Berkeley is the neighborhood?�
Hippies? (people who advocate non-violence� that’s a drawback?)
Oakland? (Here we go again, giving Oakland a bad rap� naughty, naughty).
Oh � but this audiobook was thoroughly enjoyable!!
MORE ABOUT BERKELEY�
( I can’t resist)�.
Cody’s was the best bookstore� cheese crapes and macchiato‘s at the coffee hang out next to Tower Records � and Raleigh’s restaurant on Telegraph Ave. were the best�.
°Â±ð±ô±ôâ€�
Hua was excited to go to UC Berkeley because of the great pizza stores, music, and great bookstores.
He wasn’t wrong!!!
Lots more to love…many laughs, heartwarming nostalgia, some sadness�
some inspiration�
Terrific GUY!!
�..5 hours and 28 minutes
I started listening to this audiobook at 6 AM, in the dark, beginning a 2 1/2 hour trail walk.
I immediately felt a buzz; electricity running through my body� So excited�
I was back in Berkeley- a college student - taking a long car ride with Hua and his friends.
Right away Hua kept mentioning all these little details that had me jumping for joy� Rum raisin Häagen-Dazs ice cream (I have my own Rum Raisin memories)�
etc.
Hua was such an upbeat enthusiast guy. I was all-in ‘enjoying-hearing� about his about college life�
remembering days that moved slowly�
days that moved quickly�
his classes —science courses math �
his relationship with his dad and his mom�(Taiwanese)
summer lazy days�
the plastics that came from Taiwan that we all remember in the 60s if you lived here in the Bay Area (it was the cheapest food storages we could find)� years moving on—passion for music, (all the great cool music), Tower Records, MTV, Chinatown, Chinese food, Boy Choy, book stores (CODY’S book store in Berkeley, was the greatest�.a huge loss when they closed),
Cupertino, immigration,
Silicon Valley immigrants, the Silicon Valley boom, The corporate ladder, Bubble Tea cafés, noodles, chicken feet, Chinese magazines and books, asian grocery stores, American culture shock, the book ‘Future Shock�, moving around in America, affordable opportunities, Pizza, A fan of the Dallas Cowboys because everybody else in the neighborhood seem to be, unknown Asian-American rights,
searches for experience of Home through technology and classmates and family,
seafood meatballs, giant malls that kept popping up all around town (Valco in Cupertino), ongoing memories, parents who worked hard, parents relic record collection, cello lessons, comic shops in Berkeley, textbooks, friendships, miscellaneous magazines� journalism class,
a mom that was so proud of her son and supported Hua fully�
ongoing miscellaneous trivially, and many new possibilities�
[music being at the center is Hua’s life] � Pearl Jam…etc.
Hua became zealous by everything that he discovered�.
Then …tragedy �..
�..a friend died of a drug overdose�.(heartbreaking for Hua on so many levels)�..
…society pressures were building;
contradictions of life was confusing�
Unease began to color innocence�..
Desegregation, war, sexualization, noticed problems in every generations, the meaning of dysfunction, loss, erratic emotions, and the intention to make a difference being an Asian-American.
But wait�..
MORE ABOUT BERKELEY�.
�.hold your ponies�
“What do you mean the only drawback about UC Berkeley is the neighborhood?�
Hippies? (people who advocate non-violence� that’s a drawback?)
Oakland? (Here we go again, giving Oakland a bad rap� naughty, naughty).
Oh � but this audiobook was thoroughly enjoyable!!
MORE ABOUT BERKELEY�
( I can’t resist)�.
Cody’s was the best bookstore� cheese crapes and macchiato‘s at the coffee hang out next to Tower Records � and Raleigh’s restaurant on Telegraph Ave. were the best�.
°Â±ð±ô±ôâ€�
Hua was excited to go to UC Berkeley because of the great pizza stores, music, and great bookstores.
He wasn’t wrong!!!
Lots more to love…many laughs, heartwarming nostalgia, some sadness�
some inspiration�
Terrific GUY!!
April 20, 2023
My opinion for every memoir I read is that I will never not feel uncomfortable rating a memoir. When I rate them, I am not rating the life or experience someone went through, but on the writing and delivery.
I listened to this on audio because I always enjoy hearing the author tell their own story, however I don't know if that is the format I would recommend for this read. I believe it impacted in my experience a bit. Overall this was a heartfelt and heartbreaking read!
Quotes:
“Friendship rests on the presumption of reciprocity, of drifting in and out of one another’s lives, with occasional moments of wild intensity.�
“Even then, they understood that American life is unbounded promise and hypocrisy, faith and greed, new spectrums of joy and self-doubt, freedom enabled by enslavement. All of these things at once.�
“It was exciting to meander and choose who you wanted to be, what aspects of yourself to accent and adorn. You were sending a distress signal, hoping someone would come to your rescue.�
“We cycled through legendary infatuations sure to devastate us for the rest of our lives.�
“When you’re young, you do so many things hoping to be noticed. The way you dress or stand, the music played loud enough to catch the attention of another person who might know a song, too. And then there are things you do as you step out into the world, the real world full of strange adults, testing out what it means to be generous or thoughtful. In that instant, before every memory was placed along some narrative arc, before the act of remembering took on a desperate air, I simply felt lucky enough to witness something so effortlessly kind - to see my friend do something that was good.�
I listened to this on audio because I always enjoy hearing the author tell their own story, however I don't know if that is the format I would recommend for this read. I believe it impacted in my experience a bit. Overall this was a heartfelt and heartbreaking read!
Quotes:
“Friendship rests on the presumption of reciprocity, of drifting in and out of one another’s lives, with occasional moments of wild intensity.�
“Even then, they understood that American life is unbounded promise and hypocrisy, faith and greed, new spectrums of joy and self-doubt, freedom enabled by enslavement. All of these things at once.�
“It was exciting to meander and choose who you wanted to be, what aspects of yourself to accent and adorn. You were sending a distress signal, hoping someone would come to your rescue.�
“We cycled through legendary infatuations sure to devastate us for the rest of our lives.�
“When you’re young, you do so many things hoping to be noticed. The way you dress or stand, the music played loud enough to catch the attention of another person who might know a song, too. And then there are things you do as you step out into the world, the real world full of strange adults, testing out what it means to be generous or thoughtful. In that instant, before every memory was placed along some narrative arc, before the act of remembering took on a desperate air, I simply felt lucky enough to witness something so effortlessly kind - to see my friend do something that was good.�
September 9, 2023
When Hua Hsu was a student at Berkeley in the 1990s one of his closest friends, Ken, was attacked in a car park. Forced into the trunk of his own car by three people, at least one holding a gun, Ken was driven around while his attackers tried to use his credit cards to get cash. Then they drove Ken to an isolated place where they shot him in the head, abandoning his body in an alley. Hua Hsu’s fluid, intimate memoir is his attempt to make sense of the senseless, a random act of violence and a particularly brutal reminder of the precariousness of existence.
Up until that point, Hsu’s energies were centred on forging his own identity, a process of testing various waters in ways that conjure a variety of conventional, coming-of-age narratives. Hsu’s parents were from Taiwan but met in America, where they settled and raised their son. Far from the stereotypes so carelessly applied to Asian American parents, Hsu’s family was supportive and nurturing. Although, as a Taiwanese American, Hsu was acutely aware of difference from an early age, difference became something he actively embraced: gradually defining himself through a series of oppositions, invested in the explicitly “countercultural� from producing his own zine to wearing vintage clothing to rifling through out-of-the-way, record shops in search of the obscure or neglected.
By the time Hsu arrived at Berkeley, he was inwardly uncertain but outwardly poised, outspoken about his tastes and his beliefs, disdainful of the mainstream or the mass-produced. So, when he met Ken, it was more a case of opposites repel than attract. Ken seemed intent on blending in, with his baseball caps and Abercrombie and Fitch outfits, and his insistence on the merits of popular bands. One of Ken’s first acts as a student was to join a fraternity. But, Ken and Hsu are also connected through the shared label “Asian American� despite Ken’s vastly different experience as a descendent of generations of Japanese Americans. And then through a series of unexpected, shared moments, Ken and Hsu became friends.
Hsu tells their story in a way that admits vulnerability but avoids melodrama or sentimentality. He interweaves more personal elements with ideas he first encountered as a student so, for example, Derrida’s writings on friendship frame his thoughts on how bonds develop between individuals and groups. It’s a tried-and-tested approach popularised by writers like Maggie Nelson and Cathy Park Hong, but Hsu’s sincerity and immense skill as a writer make it feel surprisingly vivid and fresh. It’s also an interesting way of reinforcing the enormity of Hsu’s loss, the vast divide between the theories we adopt to interpret and delimit the world around us and the ultimate, unfathomability of events like Ken’s murder.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Picador/Pan Macmillan
Up until that point, Hsu’s energies were centred on forging his own identity, a process of testing various waters in ways that conjure a variety of conventional, coming-of-age narratives. Hsu’s parents were from Taiwan but met in America, where they settled and raised their son. Far from the stereotypes so carelessly applied to Asian American parents, Hsu’s family was supportive and nurturing. Although, as a Taiwanese American, Hsu was acutely aware of difference from an early age, difference became something he actively embraced: gradually defining himself through a series of oppositions, invested in the explicitly “countercultural� from producing his own zine to wearing vintage clothing to rifling through out-of-the-way, record shops in search of the obscure or neglected.
By the time Hsu arrived at Berkeley, he was inwardly uncertain but outwardly poised, outspoken about his tastes and his beliefs, disdainful of the mainstream or the mass-produced. So, when he met Ken, it was more a case of opposites repel than attract. Ken seemed intent on blending in, with his baseball caps and Abercrombie and Fitch outfits, and his insistence on the merits of popular bands. One of Ken’s first acts as a student was to join a fraternity. But, Ken and Hsu are also connected through the shared label “Asian American� despite Ken’s vastly different experience as a descendent of generations of Japanese Americans. And then through a series of unexpected, shared moments, Ken and Hsu became friends.
Hsu tells their story in a way that admits vulnerability but avoids melodrama or sentimentality. He interweaves more personal elements with ideas he first encountered as a student so, for example, Derrida’s writings on friendship frame his thoughts on how bonds develop between individuals and groups. It’s a tried-and-tested approach popularised by writers like Maggie Nelson and Cathy Park Hong, but Hsu’s sincerity and immense skill as a writer make it feel surprisingly vivid and fresh. It’s also an interesting way of reinforcing the enormity of Hsu’s loss, the vast divide between the theories we adopt to interpret and delimit the world around us and the ultimate, unfathomability of events like Ken’s murder.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Picador/Pan Macmillan
December 7, 2024
Though this was a short book, it was a slog... not at all what I expected. I thought I could at least get into the 90's memories, but this guy is so self absorbed, it was painful. I tried hard to see if he was mocking himself... but sadly, I think not. His friend's death was tangential to his own snobbish navel gazing; he was the same annoying asshole back in the day, as he is now--incredibly BORING.
June 9, 2023
My best friend had a stroke and died at 18. The type of relationship, the type of death matter in predicting how I will respond and grieve. For me, Jane's death was one of the worst things in my life � I spent at least my first year of college depressed � and, paradoxically, one of the most important and transformative events. As a result of her death, I learned life is unpredictable and can be short, that one never knows when a person will leave, and that there is a possibility for great joy as well as great pain. "The sky was gorgeous and calm, but what if a hurricane struck and my friends were stranded? It suddenly made sense to always assume the worst" (p. 140). And yet, as Viktor Frankl asserted, life is marked, if not defined by suffering and our response to it.
Jane and I had gone to an all-weekend outdoor concert several days earlier, but I hadn't seen or talked to her between the concert and her death, not even to tell her that I had gotten my driver's license. (This was before cell phones and easy access to cars.) For a long time, I felt guilty about not having seen or talked to her. "I believed I had somehow allowed all this to happen" (p. 124).
What I am saying is that Hua Hsu's Stay True, a story of friendship, books, writing, and grief, was different from my experience (his friend was murdered, for example), but also similar. Death often comes with all sorts of other emotions � and that person can hang around for years, in both positive and negative ways.
Hsu wrote, "This is a book about being a good friend, a term that only occasionally applies to me" (p. 195). While this may be true, he did a fine job describing friendship. One can be good friends even if nothing alike. That push and pull in a relationship can be exciting. As he noted in a letter to Ken following his death, "'I don’t care if you can see through me,' I wrote, confessing to a list of imperfections and insecurities. 'Just as long as you can see me'" (p. 165).
Often books written by men feel stiff and only deal with some parts of the emotion spectrum (e.g., anger, resentment, frustration). I liked reading and "watching" the central relationship here, as well as Hsu's relationship with his father, who was often living and working in Taiwan. I would have wanted to have been part of their larger friend group. I also liked that Stay True is by a Taiwanese-American, writing about a Japanese American, each with different immigration histories and family. Their ethnicity is present, without being all-consuming, as they are also people obsessed with music, sitcoms, books, the subtexts of each � and just growing up.
Jane and I had gone to an all-weekend outdoor concert several days earlier, but I hadn't seen or talked to her between the concert and her death, not even to tell her that I had gotten my driver's license. (This was before cell phones and easy access to cars.) For a long time, I felt guilty about not having seen or talked to her. "I believed I had somehow allowed all this to happen" (p. 124).
What I am saying is that Hua Hsu's Stay True, a story of friendship, books, writing, and grief, was different from my experience (his friend was murdered, for example), but also similar. Death often comes with all sorts of other emotions � and that person can hang around for years, in both positive and negative ways.
Hsu wrote, "This is a book about being a good friend, a term that only occasionally applies to me" (p. 195). While this may be true, he did a fine job describing friendship. One can be good friends even if nothing alike. That push and pull in a relationship can be exciting. As he noted in a letter to Ken following his death, "'I don’t care if you can see through me,' I wrote, confessing to a list of imperfections and insecurities. 'Just as long as you can see me'" (p. 165).
Often books written by men feel stiff and only deal with some parts of the emotion spectrum (e.g., anger, resentment, frustration). I liked reading and "watching" the central relationship here, as well as Hsu's relationship with his father, who was often living and working in Taiwan. I would have wanted to have been part of their larger friend group. I also liked that Stay True is by a Taiwanese-American, writing about a Japanese American, each with different immigration histories and family. Their ethnicity is present, without being all-consuming, as they are also people obsessed with music, sitcoms, books, the subtexts of each � and just growing up.
November 22, 2022
Much of Stay True is told through from the perspective of Hua's often insufferable college self, yet filtered through a retrospective self-awareness. You might wince at his invocations of European theorists or his reflexive dismissals of Pearl Jam gone mainstream. You'd probably find this memoir a lot richer if you are familiar with 90s culture or know your way around Berkeley and the greater Bay Area. But all of it comes from an earnest, searching place, trying to piece together an identity in the making, shattered by tragedy and shaken by the difficulties of grief and memory.
Much of the memoir is grounded in Berkeley and its attendant subcultures. More than most of the cast of briefly characterized college friends that rotate in and out, Berkeley becomes a character onto itself. With an intimate familiarity approaching that with which he describes his slain best friend Ken, Hua recreates with nostalgic immersion the grit and counterculture of being an undergraduate there in the late 90s.
Although Smart Alec's has long closed down by now, and many of the establishments on Telegraph Avenue today are but superficial stand-ins for their past counterculture glory, some things haven't changed. Hua's pilgrimages to the archives of the Ethnic Studies Library mirrored my own two decades later, pouring over zines such as Hardboiled and Slant that Hua recounts having worked on back in his day. His recollections of late night hangouts took me back: the tight, lived-in yet cozy triples of Unit 3, the dimly-lit hallways and the floor-to-ceiling doors, the low-rises with their dingy secondhand sofas that make up most of off-campus housing. Dangling feet over the ledge of the campanile plaza, looking out toward the Bay. Disclaimer: I didn't actually go there as a student, but I can't stop myself from saying it: Go bears.
I appreciated how, unlike books such as Minor Feelings or The Loneliest Americans, Stay True never set out to be a definitive Asian American memoir. Even then, it makes astute observations of Asian American identity that stay away from sweeping, polemical generalizations. Take for instance, through his time mentoring Mien students in Richmond, reconciling his parents' post-1965 immigration story with Ken's long-standing Japanese American family history, or remarking on the subtle distances felt from subsequent waves of East Asian immigration, Hua nods to the layers of Asian American heritage beyond the usual, flattened image of highly educated Hart-Celler doctor/engineer immigrants.
Recommend watching the recent alongside Stay True. The documentary offers another angle into the world of 90s Asian American zines and Gen X Cool Azn male friendships. Additionally, prove that his enduring sense of cool has only matured in the decades since.
Much of the memoir is grounded in Berkeley and its attendant subcultures. More than most of the cast of briefly characterized college friends that rotate in and out, Berkeley becomes a character onto itself. With an intimate familiarity approaching that with which he describes his slain best friend Ken, Hua recreates with nostalgic immersion the grit and counterculture of being an undergraduate there in the late 90s.
Although Smart Alec's has long closed down by now, and many of the establishments on Telegraph Avenue today are but superficial stand-ins for their past counterculture glory, some things haven't changed. Hua's pilgrimages to the archives of the Ethnic Studies Library mirrored my own two decades later, pouring over zines such as Hardboiled and Slant that Hua recounts having worked on back in his day. His recollections of late night hangouts took me back: the tight, lived-in yet cozy triples of Unit 3, the dimly-lit hallways and the floor-to-ceiling doors, the low-rises with their dingy secondhand sofas that make up most of off-campus housing. Dangling feet over the ledge of the campanile plaza, looking out toward the Bay. Disclaimer: I didn't actually go there as a student, but I can't stop myself from saying it: Go bears.
I appreciated how, unlike books such as Minor Feelings or The Loneliest Americans, Stay True never set out to be a definitive Asian American memoir. Even then, it makes astute observations of Asian American identity that stay away from sweeping, polemical generalizations. Take for instance, through his time mentoring Mien students in Richmond, reconciling his parents' post-1965 immigration story with Ken's long-standing Japanese American family history, or remarking on the subtle distances felt from subsequent waves of East Asian immigration, Hua nods to the layers of Asian American heritage beyond the usual, flattened image of highly educated Hart-Celler doctor/engineer immigrants.
Recommend watching the recent alongside Stay True. The documentary offers another angle into the world of 90s Asian American zines and Gen X Cool Azn male friendships. Additionally, prove that his enduring sense of cool has only matured in the decades since.
June 20, 2023
I really liked the first half of the memoir, but thought the second half was much less successful. This focuses on Hua Hsu's life and his friendship with Ken, a college friend who dies in a random act of violence when they are still at Berkeley. Hsu is an engaging storyteller and has an interesting background, which makes this fun to read. But once Ken dies, the book swings to focusing on his death and how it affects his friends, which is unfortunately much less compelling reading (as well as being very sad!).
The first part deals with Hsu's family, specifically his Taiwanese parents, as well as his college years at Berkeley in the 90s. His parents' trajectory is fascinating: they both immigrate to the US separately, meet, and fall in love. By the time that Hsu is in high school, his dad has returned to Taiwan to work, and they communicate largely by faxing each other (I loved that some of the actual faxes are included in the book). Then Hsu is off to Cal, where he writes a zine and gets involved in different communities around Oakland. This is also very interesting as a slice of life in the 90s, particularly because Hsu is someone who gets involved. He volunteers at the Black Panther Party headquarters in Oakland when he learns they're publishing a newsletter, and he volunteers with Asian American students at the Richmond Youth Project. He and his proteges share an Asian American identity, but it fractures in interesting ways when you look at the longevity of their stays in the US and country of origin (as it should).
The second part of this book is mostly about Ken and the aftermath of his death. My main issue with this book is that Hsu spends a lot of time pondering the nature of friendship. He says that Ken understood that friendship is "about the willingness to know, rather than be known." If that's the true metric of friendship, it doesn't come across in this book - it doesn't feel like Hsu spends much time trying to know Ken, and I don't think I really knew Ken that well by the end of the story, either. On the very last page, Hsu says he, himself, is "legendarily self-involved," which might be honest (and jives with his self-portrayal in this book), but is pretty tough given that we just spent half of the memoir diving into his guilt and his feelings about his friend's death. Who is that for, and what is it for? It's not really clear.
The first part deals with Hsu's family, specifically his Taiwanese parents, as well as his college years at Berkeley in the 90s. His parents' trajectory is fascinating: they both immigrate to the US separately, meet, and fall in love. By the time that Hsu is in high school, his dad has returned to Taiwan to work, and they communicate largely by faxing each other (I loved that some of the actual faxes are included in the book). Then Hsu is off to Cal, where he writes a zine and gets involved in different communities around Oakland. This is also very interesting as a slice of life in the 90s, particularly because Hsu is someone who gets involved. He volunteers at the Black Panther Party headquarters in Oakland when he learns they're publishing a newsletter, and he volunteers with Asian American students at the Richmond Youth Project. He and his proteges share an Asian American identity, but it fractures in interesting ways when you look at the longevity of their stays in the US and country of origin (as it should).
The second part of this book is mostly about Ken and the aftermath of his death. My main issue with this book is that Hsu spends a lot of time pondering the nature of friendship. He says that Ken understood that friendship is "about the willingness to know, rather than be known." If that's the true metric of friendship, it doesn't come across in this book - it doesn't feel like Hsu spends much time trying to know Ken, and I don't think I really knew Ken that well by the end of the story, either. On the very last page, Hsu says he, himself, is "legendarily self-involved," which might be honest (and jives with his self-portrayal in this book), but is pretty tough given that we just spent half of the memoir diving into his guilt and his feelings about his friend's death. Who is that for, and what is it for? It's not really clear.
January 15, 2023
What is the point of this book? Is it that the author is the child of immigrants? It doesn't really feel like an immigrant story. Is it about growing up in the 90s? Is it about being young and having friends? Is it about grief? If it's about grief why isn't the story about his friend who dies from the beginning? The point of the book seems to me to be that Hua Hsu is a writer for the New Yorker and thus if he wants a book published, it will be published and get press.
August 7, 2023
This is a beautiful memoir on self and relationships and grief. I listened on audio and fear that is not the best form for a book like this that is so intimate and personal and set in ruminations. I think the second half was better. Hsu writes beautifully.
January 1, 2024
Really loved this. The memoir was contained to a certain number of years of his life - before and after the murder of Ken, his friend in college - with older self revisiting diaries, journals, and zines from the time.
Some favorite things:
- Hua's faxes with his dad in Taiwan. Substance, humor, love. The way his dad always signed off with "What do you think?" encouraging more conversation with his son.
- 80s/90s music and film nostalgia galore. Hsu and I are around the same age +/- a few years, but very much same milieu and scene. The familiarity and nostalgia definitely added to my enjoyment of this book.
- Discussion on philosophical particulars of friendship from Derrida (learned that the author also wrote a New Yorker piece on Derrida's friendship writings in 2019)
- Hsu's volunteering with Mien diaspora teens in Oakland and with the incarcerated at San Quentin
4.5/5*
Some favorite things:
- Hua's faxes with his dad in Taiwan. Substance, humor, love. The way his dad always signed off with "What do you think?" encouraging more conversation with his son.
- 80s/90s music and film nostalgia galore. Hsu and I are around the same age +/- a few years, but very much same milieu and scene. The familiarity and nostalgia definitely added to my enjoyment of this book.
- Discussion on philosophical particulars of friendship from Derrida (learned that the author also wrote a New Yorker piece on Derrida's friendship writings in 2019)
- Hsu's volunteering with Mien diaspora teens in Oakland and with the incarcerated at San Quentin
4.5/5*
April 7, 2024
After reading only women in March, switching back to a mix of women and men authors has been a slow and steady process. Because I decided to rekindle my lifetime Pulitzer challenge this year, I decided to look for recent winners across all platforms that are not heavy tomes. April is a busy month for me; that seven hundred page history or biography winner isn’t happening at the moment. What I did find was last year’s winner for memoir, now a separate category from biography, resulting in even more award winners for me to read. Hua Hsu is an English professor at Bard College. He grew up in the Bay Area and attended Berkeley. He calls Stay True a book about friendship that was twenty years in the making. While not the type of book I generally read, I am a sucker for memoirs- I could read one a day for the rest of my life and it would not be enough. I also knew that as a Pulitzer winner, the book would be well written even if not focusing on a topic that I would list as a favorite. This is how one broadens one’s mind as a reader and person, so Stay True became one of my Pulitzer winners of the month.
Hua Hsu is the only child of Taiwanese immigrants. His parents both came to the United States at the time when mainland China allowed the Taiwanese to leave the country if they so chose, and many fled as soon as they could. The first wave to arrive in the United States were college graduates who came to graduate school on a student visa. Many worked in the technical fields, and my father noted working with both Chinese and Taiwanese during his career, choosing not to discuss politics with them for it was a tough subject. I attended high school with the children of some of those who decided to stay as these immigrants moved to high end public school districts in which to enroll their children. By the time I graduated, I understood that the district was 13% Asian and over the course of the ensuing generation, these numbers increased. Hsu’s parents obtained graduate degrees in the Midwest but eventually moved to California, both because of its relative proximity to Asia and because they found a community of Chinese immigrants of all stripes already living there. The family would drive as much as half an hour to dinners with other Chinese families, creating a sense of community that eases the transition of the immigrant experience to life in a new country. Hua is an only child and attended multicultural Berkeley High School in the 1990s. Close enough in age to me to experience teenage years during the same time period, reading about life in the 90s was a nostalgic throwback. Life as the child of immigrants stirred the pot a bit and made life in the 90s appear less straightforward than it might have seemed at the time. This added to the book’s appeal.
Once the Silicon boom hit, many Taiwanese returned to the country to start and manage businesses there. Hua’s father moved back to Taiwan before he started high school, and his mother left him to do as he pleased for the most part. He did spend summers in Taiwan and spoke the language fluently; yet, Hua desired to carve out a niche for himself apart from the mainstream Asian immigrant culture. He did not smoke, drink, or do drugs, so his niche became the underground music movement and thrifting, wearing retro clothes appropriate for a grandfather but made to look in. The 90s were the pre gadget and 24/7 news age and a time at a crossroads when people still made mix tapes. A CD was a novelty at first - my first was Madonna’s Immaculate Collection- and long distance calls, especially overseas, cost a fortune. Hua’s father actually bought a fax machine so they could communicate because faxes cost less than international calls at the time. Tell that to a kid today and they would be shocked. Asians were meant to be the model minority, and Hua excelled at math but abhored the subject. His strength was the fine arts, especially music appreciation and the creation of zines. He enrolled at UC- Berkeley due to its proximity to home and because it is a public university. There he thought he could carve his niche as a fringe, culture Asian American. This proved to be trickier than he originally expected and also ended up being a slower read than expected, but c’est la vie. I read on.
Hua’s college experience almost reminded me about Seinfeld until it wasn’t. He had a friend group that he hung out with all the time and this is a book of their friendships. Although Hua judged people by their taste in music and preferred Nirvana over Pearl Jam and detested The Beach Boys for most of his life, in the end he gravitated toward other Asian Americans. This was not by design but most minority groups crave being around others like them. This is why his parents would drive for half an hour to meet with other Chinese immigrants. Hua’s friends were for tho most Asian, and Ken was the star that they all orbited around. A Japanese American who was mainstream, wore Nikes, and loved his San Diego sports teams, Ken is the type of person who Hua generally does not befriend. Ken was the best friend of everyone he met, Hua included, he had that type of personality that even Hua begrudgingly started to listen to Pearl Jam, only because Ken liked it. The two of them carved out an underground, fringe culture for themselves and organized Asian student movements on campus. Ken even wrote an article about the Padres for Hua’s zine and gave the author the nickname of Huascene that endures to this day. The friend group underwent a typical undergraduate student arc, which changed when Ken was murdered in the summer before their senior year. This is a book about Ken and what might have been; twenty years later he still occupies a central point in Hua’s life because his star was that bright. It took the passage of time to write about events surrounding the murder because Ken was that type of friend to everyone around him; the passage of time did little to dull events, so Hua memorialized Ken for time eternal on paper.
Stay True comes from an inside joke between Hua and Ken. Each of them allowed the other to broaden their horizons and become a more complete person. While still connoisseurs of independent music and movies, both men came to appreciate aspects of mainstream culture and incorporate them into their own lives. I have mainly known Asian Americans as the model minority. This is a stereotype to say the least, but when I see Chinese, Korean, and Asian Indians dominate advanced math and science courses, I see the truth aspect to the stereotype with my own eyes. Hua Hsu happened to score well in math in school, but he is most appreciative of the fine arts and became a professor and writer. He lists as his friends today other up and coming writers rather than the science geeks who make the Silicon Valley go. This memoir is unique in presentation as it points to the differences within the other group while still handling the traditional coming of age facet that occurs at some point in most memoirs. Although not a book I would have selected, that it won a Pulitzer gave me pause for thought and I decided to select it on that merit. While not a book I would have chosen on my own, I still found intrigue in learning of the Asian American experience from one in my age bracket. There is something to be learned from all, and Hua Hsu proved to be a good teacher.
4 stars
Hua Hsu is the only child of Taiwanese immigrants. His parents both came to the United States at the time when mainland China allowed the Taiwanese to leave the country if they so chose, and many fled as soon as they could. The first wave to arrive in the United States were college graduates who came to graduate school on a student visa. Many worked in the technical fields, and my father noted working with both Chinese and Taiwanese during his career, choosing not to discuss politics with them for it was a tough subject. I attended high school with the children of some of those who decided to stay as these immigrants moved to high end public school districts in which to enroll their children. By the time I graduated, I understood that the district was 13% Asian and over the course of the ensuing generation, these numbers increased. Hsu’s parents obtained graduate degrees in the Midwest but eventually moved to California, both because of its relative proximity to Asia and because they found a community of Chinese immigrants of all stripes already living there. The family would drive as much as half an hour to dinners with other Chinese families, creating a sense of community that eases the transition of the immigrant experience to life in a new country. Hua is an only child and attended multicultural Berkeley High School in the 1990s. Close enough in age to me to experience teenage years during the same time period, reading about life in the 90s was a nostalgic throwback. Life as the child of immigrants stirred the pot a bit and made life in the 90s appear less straightforward than it might have seemed at the time. This added to the book’s appeal.
Once the Silicon boom hit, many Taiwanese returned to the country to start and manage businesses there. Hua’s father moved back to Taiwan before he started high school, and his mother left him to do as he pleased for the most part. He did spend summers in Taiwan and spoke the language fluently; yet, Hua desired to carve out a niche for himself apart from the mainstream Asian immigrant culture. He did not smoke, drink, or do drugs, so his niche became the underground music movement and thrifting, wearing retro clothes appropriate for a grandfather but made to look in. The 90s were the pre gadget and 24/7 news age and a time at a crossroads when people still made mix tapes. A CD was a novelty at first - my first was Madonna’s Immaculate Collection- and long distance calls, especially overseas, cost a fortune. Hua’s father actually bought a fax machine so they could communicate because faxes cost less than international calls at the time. Tell that to a kid today and they would be shocked. Asians were meant to be the model minority, and Hua excelled at math but abhored the subject. His strength was the fine arts, especially music appreciation and the creation of zines. He enrolled at UC- Berkeley due to its proximity to home and because it is a public university. There he thought he could carve his niche as a fringe, culture Asian American. This proved to be trickier than he originally expected and also ended up being a slower read than expected, but c’est la vie. I read on.
Hua’s college experience almost reminded me about Seinfeld until it wasn’t. He had a friend group that he hung out with all the time and this is a book of their friendships. Although Hua judged people by their taste in music and preferred Nirvana over Pearl Jam and detested The Beach Boys for most of his life, in the end he gravitated toward other Asian Americans. This was not by design but most minority groups crave being around others like them. This is why his parents would drive for half an hour to meet with other Chinese immigrants. Hua’s friends were for tho most Asian, and Ken was the star that they all orbited around. A Japanese American who was mainstream, wore Nikes, and loved his San Diego sports teams, Ken is the type of person who Hua generally does not befriend. Ken was the best friend of everyone he met, Hua included, he had that type of personality that even Hua begrudgingly started to listen to Pearl Jam, only because Ken liked it. The two of them carved out an underground, fringe culture for themselves and organized Asian student movements on campus. Ken even wrote an article about the Padres for Hua’s zine and gave the author the nickname of Huascene that endures to this day. The friend group underwent a typical undergraduate student arc, which changed when Ken was murdered in the summer before their senior year. This is a book about Ken and what might have been; twenty years later he still occupies a central point in Hua’s life because his star was that bright. It took the passage of time to write about events surrounding the murder because Ken was that type of friend to everyone around him; the passage of time did little to dull events, so Hua memorialized Ken for time eternal on paper.
Stay True comes from an inside joke between Hua and Ken. Each of them allowed the other to broaden their horizons and become a more complete person. While still connoisseurs of independent music and movies, both men came to appreciate aspects of mainstream culture and incorporate them into their own lives. I have mainly known Asian Americans as the model minority. This is a stereotype to say the least, but when I see Chinese, Korean, and Asian Indians dominate advanced math and science courses, I see the truth aspect to the stereotype with my own eyes. Hua Hsu happened to score well in math in school, but he is most appreciative of the fine arts and became a professor and writer. He lists as his friends today other up and coming writers rather than the science geeks who make the Silicon Valley go. This memoir is unique in presentation as it points to the differences within the other group while still handling the traditional coming of age facet that occurs at some point in most memoirs. Although not a book I would have selected, that it won a Pulitzer gave me pause for thought and I decided to select it on that merit. While not a book I would have chosen on my own, I still found intrigue in learning of the Asian American experience from one in my age bracket. There is something to be learned from all, and Hua Hsu proved to be a good teacher.
4 stars
January 13, 2023
What a polarizing read this was for me! The first half of it, I had a hard time stomaching the author. His memories of his teenage years, followed by his years at Stanford, went overboard in highlighting just how much of an insufferable, pretentious person he was. (It drove me nuts every time he talked about his ‘zine � oh gosh, SO MUCH NERD TALK ABOUT ‘ZINES IN THIS BOOK!)
BUT THEN � he loses his friend Ken in this super tragic way. And then he writes so poignantly about the confusion and fall out of this loss that I almost found myself liking this book. Key word being almost.
For me, this was a 3-star read and my feelings about it are in line with those shared in this review from fellow reader Luce, whose following opinion I also happen to share: “I’m sure this memoir will resonate with a lot of readers but sadly I found its portrayal of friendship somewhat of a let-down.�
BUT THEN � he loses his friend Ken in this super tragic way. And then he writes so poignantly about the confusion and fall out of this loss that I almost found myself liking this book. Key word being almost.
For me, this was a 3-star read and my feelings about it are in line with those shared in this review from fellow reader Luce, whose following opinion I also happen to share: “I’m sure this memoir will resonate with a lot of readers but sadly I found its portrayal of friendship somewhat of a let-down.�
May 21, 2023
Given all the hype, all the year-end best-of lists it appeared on, I expected more from this memoir.
Not establishing very early on who Ken was and why we, the reader, should care about him was a huge misstep. I spent the first half of the book wondering who this random guy the narrator kept mentioning was- his future lover? Someone famous I was supposed to recognize?
Turns out, he’s just Hsu’s acquaintance from college.
Some memoirs are worth reading simply because the author has led an interesting life. Others, because the quality of the writing. Very rarely do you get a masterful writer who has a very unique life-story to tell.
Stay True is none of the above. The random act of violence on which this book is centered was a tragedy but Hsu himself is neither interesting enough, nor is his prose impressive (merely competent) and the narrative frequently stalls out because of all the random anecdotal asides about late 90s/early 2000s Berkeley/clothing/internet/music that detract, rather than add to the story.
The people populating Stay True are thinly characterized, usually directly, or through a belabored, way-too-long explanation of their musical tastes and how 20-year-old Hsu judged those musical tastes. None of the relationships- be it Hsu’s relationship with Ken, with his parents or former girlfriends, are detailed or fleshed out enough for us to care about them.
The narrative wanders aimlessly; it is not voice-driven, not plot-driven, not character-driven, not driven by much of anything except a vague grief over something that happened 20 years ago. Maybe I am just dead inside, but Hsu failed to make me believe that he was as impacted by the tragedy as he claimed to be.
My overall rating, using Hsu’s own scale: this memoir is like someone who listens to Pearl Jam but who pretends to love Nirvana (from before they were famous) but ultimately listens to Nirvana after all the bandwagon fans showed up, also they dress in vintage thrift store finds that they paid a less-cool friend to find for them, but you won’t find any photographs of their clothing because this was pre-internet when carrying around a camera would have been seen as weird so nobody posed for photos but also they are a straight-edged punk in that they don’t drink or chew or go with girls who do, because you can’t properly be judgmental of everyone when you are inebriated.
If you are looking for a moving, well-written exploration of grief through the lens of music, skip Stay True and instead check out Hanif Abdurraqib’s essay collection They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us.
Not establishing very early on who Ken was and why we, the reader, should care about him was a huge misstep. I spent the first half of the book wondering who this random guy the narrator kept mentioning was- his future lover? Someone famous I was supposed to recognize?
Turns out, he’s just Hsu’s acquaintance from college.
Some memoirs are worth reading simply because the author has led an interesting life. Others, because the quality of the writing. Very rarely do you get a masterful writer who has a very unique life-story to tell.
Stay True is none of the above. The random act of violence on which this book is centered was a tragedy but Hsu himself is neither interesting enough, nor is his prose impressive (merely competent) and the narrative frequently stalls out because of all the random anecdotal asides about late 90s/early 2000s Berkeley/clothing/internet/music that detract, rather than add to the story.
The people populating Stay True are thinly characterized, usually directly, or through a belabored, way-too-long explanation of their musical tastes and how 20-year-old Hsu judged those musical tastes. None of the relationships- be it Hsu’s relationship with Ken, with his parents or former girlfriends, are detailed or fleshed out enough for us to care about them.
The narrative wanders aimlessly; it is not voice-driven, not plot-driven, not character-driven, not driven by much of anything except a vague grief over something that happened 20 years ago. Maybe I am just dead inside, but Hsu failed to make me believe that he was as impacted by the tragedy as he claimed to be.
My overall rating, using Hsu’s own scale: this memoir is like someone who listens to Pearl Jam but who pretends to love Nirvana (from before they were famous) but ultimately listens to Nirvana after all the bandwagon fans showed up, also they dress in vintage thrift store finds that they paid a less-cool friend to find for them, but you won’t find any photographs of their clothing because this was pre-internet when carrying around a camera would have been seen as weird so nobody posed for photos but also they are a straight-edged punk in that they don’t drink or chew or go with girls who do, because you can’t properly be judgmental of everyone when you are inebriated.
If you are looking for a moving, well-written exploration of grief through the lens of music, skip Stay True and instead check out Hanif Abdurraqib’s essay collection They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us.
January 4, 2023
4.5 // this got to me. And with everything I’ve been going through lately, it did its damage. And that’s what I wanted.
December 24, 2022
a love so beautifully rendered i wonder if i have ever truly loved anyone
August 12, 2024
Schon auf der zweiten Seite, als der Erzähler seinen Freunden beweisen möchte, "dass Pavement Pearl Jam bei Weitem überlegen war", wusste ich, dass ich "Stay True" mögen werde. Es ist die Geschichte der Freundschaft zwischen Hua und Ken. Die beiden sind asiatisch-amerikanische junge Männer, die auf dem College zu Freunden werden. Musik spielt von Anfang an eine große Rolle. Hua hört vor allem den Indie-Rock und den HipHop der 90er-Jahre. Während für ihn Nirvana sehr wichtig ist und der Tod von Kurt Cobain ihn tief erschüttert, hört Ken Pearl Jam. Obwohl Hua Hsu acht Jahre jünger ist als ich, kenne ich alle Songs und Bands, die in dem Buch genannt werden. Das war für mich die erste Verbindung zu dem Text.
Die zweite Verbindung war die Beschreibung des technischen Wandels der Zeit. Das Internet dringt so langsam in den Alltag, ist aber immer noch etwas Besonderes. Man guckt nur gelegentlich in sein E-Mail-Postfach. Smartphones gibt es noch nicht. Musik findet Hua in Plattenläden und nicht im Internet. Als jemand erzählt, dass es jetzt CD-Brenner gibt, fragt er sich, was das soll, wenn man doch seine Mixtapes auf Kassette aufnehmen kann.
Das ist die Welt, in der Hua und Ken sich bewegt haben. Das Buch ist ein bewegender imaginärer Dialog zwischen den beiden. Hua vermisst seinen Freund. Er schreibt in einer Art autobiographischen Essay gegen Tod und Vergessen an. Gleichzeitig versucht er seine Schuldgefühle zu verstehen. Der Text mäandert gelegentlich zwischen den Gedanken hin und her. Das würde mich bei vielen Texten stören. Hier passt es aber. Das Springen zwischen den Themen spiegelt die Gespräche zwischen Hua und Ken wider. Auch die beiden kamen schnell von der Analyse einer Filmszene zu einer politischen Deutung zu einer Diskussion über eine spezifische Jacke. Das klingt konfus, liest sich aber absolut schlüssig.
Im Literaturclub des Schweizer Fernsehens sprach eine Kritikerin davon, dass "Stay True" ein Lebensbuch für sie ist. Ganz so weit würde ich nicht gehen. Ein Lesehighlight in diesem Jahr ist es aber auf alle Fälle.
Die zweite Verbindung war die Beschreibung des technischen Wandels der Zeit. Das Internet dringt so langsam in den Alltag, ist aber immer noch etwas Besonderes. Man guckt nur gelegentlich in sein E-Mail-Postfach. Smartphones gibt es noch nicht. Musik findet Hua in Plattenläden und nicht im Internet. Als jemand erzählt, dass es jetzt CD-Brenner gibt, fragt er sich, was das soll, wenn man doch seine Mixtapes auf Kassette aufnehmen kann.
Das ist die Welt, in der Hua und Ken sich bewegt haben. Das Buch ist ein bewegender imaginärer Dialog zwischen den beiden. Hua vermisst seinen Freund. Er schreibt in einer Art autobiographischen Essay gegen Tod und Vergessen an. Gleichzeitig versucht er seine Schuldgefühle zu verstehen. Der Text mäandert gelegentlich zwischen den Gedanken hin und her. Das würde mich bei vielen Texten stören. Hier passt es aber. Das Springen zwischen den Themen spiegelt die Gespräche zwischen Hua und Ken wider. Auch die beiden kamen schnell von der Analyse einer Filmszene zu einer politischen Deutung zu einer Diskussion über eine spezifische Jacke. Das klingt konfus, liest sich aber absolut schlüssig.
Im Literaturclub des Schweizer Fernsehens sprach eine Kritikerin davon, dass "Stay True" ein Lebensbuch für sie ist. Ganz so weit würde ich nicht gehen. Ein Lesehighlight in diesem Jahr ist es aber auf alle Fälle.
April 19, 2023
If you're a teacher and interested in a lesson plan that uses this text, here is one:
I listened to Hua Hsu read "Stay True" and just couldn't get into it. The author reminds me of the guys I dated in my twenties: pretentious, self-absorbed, judgmental. Much of the book focuses on Hua's concern about his (and others') taste in music, as if that makes a person worthy. His zine seemed interesting, but ultimately I wanted more about it. What ended up happening with it?
In every chapter, I found myself unable to connect with Hua, unable to see any of myself in his writing.
When he wrote about his relationship with Ken, I kept thinking they were going to fall in love. That Hua would be gay; that he didn't realize this until Ken. That part of his angst and judgement was self loathing or a lack of self discovery. But no, Ken dies. Tragically murdered!
I am a memoir addict and this one felt flat. It wasn't developed in a way that allowed me to see growth or personal accountability. It wasn't particularly beautifully written either. I'm honestly shocked there are so many positive reviews. I just didn't get the appeal.
I listened to Hua Hsu read "Stay True" and just couldn't get into it. The author reminds me of the guys I dated in my twenties: pretentious, self-absorbed, judgmental. Much of the book focuses on Hua's concern about his (and others') taste in music, as if that makes a person worthy. His zine seemed interesting, but ultimately I wanted more about it. What ended up happening with it?
In every chapter, I found myself unable to connect with Hua, unable to see any of myself in his writing.
When he wrote about his relationship with Ken, I kept thinking they were going to fall in love. That Hua would be gay; that he didn't realize this until Ken. That part of his angst and judgement was self loathing or a lack of self discovery. But no, Ken dies. Tragically murdered!
I am a memoir addict and this one felt flat. It wasn't developed in a way that allowed me to see growth or personal accountability. It wasn't particularly beautifully written either. I'm honestly shocked there are so many positive reviews. I just didn't get the appeal.
Read
March 17, 2022In this elegant, open-hearted elegy for his fallen friend, Hsu does the labor of love, of taking time to recall and and make record of the quotidian detail of another man's life. In this way he reveals for us all how aesthetics are products of both relationships and of terrible loss. The river of this memoir is quiet and deep, unassuming, it enters the reader and changes us with its capacity for connection.
March 2, 2024
Huge expectations - this was a memoir that stayed on my TBR shelf for quite some time. In the end, I ended it disappointed and slightly frustrated. I find it difficult to read memoirs where I struggle to connect with characters and the storyline, especially when pretty tragic events are described. But this is what happened with me and 'Stay true', a memoir of a loss of a close friend, but also a story of early friendships, growing up together and being different while also trying to belong. I cannot really pinpoint whether it is due to the style, the chaotic structure, the dispersed events that are presented or yet due to something else. I think I would also like to discover more about the friendship between Huan and Ken. This is for me a very good example of why it is extremely difficult to write a captivating, engaging memoir even when the direction seems to be very clear in the first place.
January 31, 2024
Totally the opposite what I expected: nothing like a reflective memoir but just a monologue of gibberish most of the time. Maybe I should have read between the lines more? Idk but 1 star because this was an utterly boring experience. When I read biographies I don’t want to read about the person but about the person’s experiences, emotions, hardships, triumphs, all those that can teach me something� (unless the person is an extremely interesting individual (which is very rare)) I feel this bio didn’t quite reach me that way.
July 29, 2024
“Friendship rests on the presumption of reciprocity, of drifting in and out of one another’s lives, with occasional moments of wild intensity.�
November 24, 2024
*3.5 rounded up
“ð˜›ð˜©ð˜� ð˜ªð˜¯ð˜µð˜ªð˜®ð˜¢ð˜¤ð˜º ð˜°ð˜§ ð˜§ð˜³ð˜ªð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜¥ð˜´ð˜©ð˜ªð˜± [ð˜‹ð˜¦ð˜³ð˜³ð˜ªð˜¥ð˜¢] ð˜¸ð˜³ð˜ªð˜µð˜¦ð˜´, ð˜ð˜ªð˜¦ð˜´ ð˜ªð˜¯ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ ð˜´ð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜´ð˜¢ð˜µð˜ªð˜°ð˜¯ ð˜°ð˜§ ð˜³ð˜¦ð˜¤ð˜°ð˜¨ð˜¯ð˜ªð˜»ð˜ªð˜¯ð˜¨ ð˜°ð˜¯ð˜¦ð˜´ð˜¦ð˜ð˜§ ð˜ªð˜¯ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ ð˜¦ð˜ºð˜¦ ð˜°ð˜§ ð˜¢ð˜¯ð˜°ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ð˜³. ð˜žð˜¦ ð˜¤ð˜°ð˜¯ð˜µð˜ªð˜¯ð˜¶ð˜¦ ð˜µð˜° ð˜¬ð˜¯ð˜°ð˜¸ ð˜°ð˜¶ð˜³ ð˜§ð˜³ð˜ªð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜¥, ð˜¦ð˜·ð˜¦ð˜¯ ð˜¢ð˜§ð˜µð˜¦ð˜³ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ð˜º ð˜¢ð˜³ð˜¦ ð˜¯ð˜° ð˜ð˜°ð˜¯ð˜¨ð˜¦ð˜³ ð˜±ð˜³ð˜¦ð˜´ð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜µ ð˜µð˜° ð˜ð˜°ð˜°ð˜¬ ð˜£ð˜¢ð˜¤ð˜¬ ð˜¢ð˜µ ð˜¶ð˜´. ð˜ð˜³ð˜°ð˜® ð˜µð˜©ð˜¢ð˜µ ð˜·ð˜¦ð˜³ð˜º ð˜§ð˜ªð˜³ð˜´ð˜µ ð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜¤ð˜°ð˜¶ð˜¯ð˜µð˜¦ð˜³, ð˜¸ð˜¦ ð˜¢ð˜³ð˜¦ ð˜¢ð˜ð˜¸ð˜¢ð˜ºð˜´ ð˜±ð˜³ð˜¦ð˜±ð˜¢ð˜³ð˜ªð˜¯ð˜¨ ð˜§ð˜°ð˜³ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ ð˜¦ð˜·ð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜µð˜¶ð˜¢ð˜ð˜ªð˜µð˜º ð˜µð˜©ð˜¢ð˜µ ð˜¸ð˜¦ ð˜®ð˜ªð˜¨ð˜©ð˜µ ð˜°ð˜¶ð˜µð˜ð˜ªð˜·ð˜¦ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ð˜®, ð˜°ð˜³ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ð˜º ð˜¶ð˜´. ð˜žð˜¦ ð˜¢ð˜³ð˜¦ ð˜¢ð˜ð˜³ð˜¦ð˜¢ð˜¥ð˜º ð˜ªð˜®ð˜¢ð˜¨ð˜ªð˜¯ð˜ªð˜¯ð˜¨ ð˜©ð˜°ð˜¸ ð˜¸ð˜¦ ð˜®ð˜¢ð˜º ð˜´ð˜°ð˜®ð˜¦ð˜¥ð˜¢ð˜º ð˜³ð˜¦ð˜®ð˜¦ð˜®ð˜£ð˜¦ð˜³ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ð˜®. ð˜›ð˜° ð˜ð˜°ð˜·ð˜¦ ð˜§ð˜³ð˜ªð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜¥ð˜´ð˜©ð˜ªð˜±â€¦â€™ð˜°ð˜¯ð˜� ð˜®ð˜¶ð˜´ð˜µ ð˜ð˜°ð˜·ð˜¦ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ ð˜§ð˜¶ð˜µð˜¶ð˜³ð˜¦.’â€�
It’s hard to imagine hope in a hopeless place. But it’s the company we keep that make the times last us for the little while we have on earth. Hsu dives deep into the teen angst of the late eighties and early nineties through music and zine culture in the Bay Area to ring true a depth that all teens feel. Wanting to be noticed. Wanting to be loved. In all the right ways. But when loss hits us at a time of possibility and change, we see the smoke and mirrors of the greener grass and are left with less of a desire to hope, but a drive to persist.
How we persist is beauty and truth to the embellishments in the stories we tell, so that they could, one day, keep up with the kindness we want in other people, in other days.
Poignant, yet jaded with Hsu’s confused relationship of emotional distance and the adolescent voice. It’s a tricky tightrope he walks on that fumbles with the magic of being young and reckless, which makes the last part of the book crumble a bit. Hsu lacks anything to say about himself, acting only as an NPC in his own past to relay a story perhaps better suited for the trauma dump to any of the few lonely folk who are still at the house party that should’ve ended an hour or two before. But alas, we are here and the guy with the acoustic guitar is strumming away, waiting for the insomnia to die out with the night. We are here because it’s a promise to be present.
“ð˜›ð˜©ð˜� ð˜ªð˜¯ð˜µð˜ªð˜®ð˜¢ð˜¤ð˜º ð˜°ð˜§ ð˜§ð˜³ð˜ªð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜¥ð˜´ð˜©ð˜ªð˜± [ð˜‹ð˜¦ð˜³ð˜³ð˜ªð˜¥ð˜¢] ð˜¸ð˜³ð˜ªð˜µð˜¦ð˜´, ð˜ð˜ªð˜¦ð˜´ ð˜ªð˜¯ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ ð˜´ð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜´ð˜¢ð˜µð˜ªð˜°ð˜¯ ð˜°ð˜§ ð˜³ð˜¦ð˜¤ð˜°ð˜¨ð˜¯ð˜ªð˜»ð˜ªð˜¯ð˜¨ ð˜°ð˜¯ð˜¦ð˜´ð˜¦ð˜ð˜§ ð˜ªð˜¯ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ ð˜¦ð˜ºð˜¦ ð˜°ð˜§ ð˜¢ð˜¯ð˜°ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ð˜³. ð˜žð˜¦ ð˜¤ð˜°ð˜¯ð˜µð˜ªð˜¯ð˜¶ð˜¦ ð˜µð˜° ð˜¬ð˜¯ð˜°ð˜¸ ð˜°ð˜¶ð˜³ ð˜§ð˜³ð˜ªð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜¥, ð˜¦ð˜·ð˜¦ð˜¯ ð˜¢ð˜§ð˜µð˜¦ð˜³ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ð˜º ð˜¢ð˜³ð˜¦ ð˜¯ð˜° ð˜ð˜°ð˜¯ð˜¨ð˜¦ð˜³ ð˜±ð˜³ð˜¦ð˜´ð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜µ ð˜µð˜° ð˜ð˜°ð˜°ð˜¬ ð˜£ð˜¢ð˜¤ð˜¬ ð˜¢ð˜µ ð˜¶ð˜´. ð˜ð˜³ð˜°ð˜® ð˜µð˜©ð˜¢ð˜µ ð˜·ð˜¦ð˜³ð˜º ð˜§ð˜ªð˜³ð˜´ð˜µ ð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜¤ð˜°ð˜¶ð˜¯ð˜µð˜¦ð˜³, ð˜¸ð˜¦ ð˜¢ð˜³ð˜¦ ð˜¢ð˜ð˜¸ð˜¢ð˜ºð˜´ ð˜±ð˜³ð˜¦ð˜±ð˜¢ð˜³ð˜ªð˜¯ð˜¨ ð˜§ð˜°ð˜³ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ ð˜¦ð˜·ð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜µð˜¶ð˜¢ð˜ð˜ªð˜µð˜º ð˜µð˜©ð˜¢ð˜µ ð˜¸ð˜¦ ð˜®ð˜ªð˜¨ð˜©ð˜µ ð˜°ð˜¶ð˜µð˜ð˜ªð˜·ð˜¦ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ð˜®, ð˜°ð˜³ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ð˜º ð˜¶ð˜´. ð˜žð˜¦ ð˜¢ð˜³ð˜¦ ð˜¢ð˜ð˜³ð˜¦ð˜¢ð˜¥ð˜º ð˜ªð˜®ð˜¢ð˜¨ð˜ªð˜¯ð˜ªð˜¯ð˜¨ ð˜©ð˜°ð˜¸ ð˜¸ð˜¦ ð˜®ð˜¢ð˜º ð˜´ð˜°ð˜®ð˜¦ð˜¥ð˜¢ð˜º ð˜³ð˜¦ð˜®ð˜¦ð˜®ð˜£ð˜¦ð˜³ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ð˜®. ð˜›ð˜° ð˜ð˜°ð˜·ð˜¦ ð˜§ð˜³ð˜ªð˜¦ð˜¯ð˜¥ð˜´ð˜©ð˜ªð˜±â€¦â€™ð˜°ð˜¯ð˜� ð˜®ð˜¶ð˜´ð˜µ ð˜ð˜°ð˜·ð˜¦ ð˜µð˜©ð˜¦ ð˜§ð˜¶ð˜µð˜¶ð˜³ð˜¦.’â€�
It’s hard to imagine hope in a hopeless place. But it’s the company we keep that make the times last us for the little while we have on earth. Hsu dives deep into the teen angst of the late eighties and early nineties through music and zine culture in the Bay Area to ring true a depth that all teens feel. Wanting to be noticed. Wanting to be loved. In all the right ways. But when loss hits us at a time of possibility and change, we see the smoke and mirrors of the greener grass and are left with less of a desire to hope, but a drive to persist.
How we persist is beauty and truth to the embellishments in the stories we tell, so that they could, one day, keep up with the kindness we want in other people, in other days.
Poignant, yet jaded with Hsu’s confused relationship of emotional distance and the adolescent voice. It’s a tricky tightrope he walks on that fumbles with the magic of being young and reckless, which makes the last part of the book crumble a bit. Hsu lacks anything to say about himself, acting only as an NPC in his own past to relay a story perhaps better suited for the trauma dump to any of the few lonely folk who are still at the house party that should’ve ended an hour or two before. But alas, we are here and the guy with the acoustic guitar is strumming away, waiting for the insomnia to die out with the night. We are here because it’s a promise to be present.
October 2, 2022
I was looking forward to this book but while it was a good read, I unfortunately did not connect with it as much as I wanted to.
I liked Stay True's exploration of culture, identity and belonging but found myself being bored for the most part. I did not get most of the references and musicians (or at least that's who I assumed they are) nor could I picture the setting and vibes, so all of it felt really dry to me.
Nevertheless, I appreciate Hua Hsu sharing his experiences as a college student, the son of Taiwanese immigrants and a zine lover while navigating life and relationships (both platonic and romantic) as well as trying to find his place in the world. I found it striking how he seemed to eschew all things mainstream but was oh so very hipster.
In this reflective memoir, the author also grapples with the death of a friend and the guilt that comes with it. One part that stuck out to me in particular was when a mutual friend asked, "Were you and Ken really that close?" and Hua Hsu "panicked", acknowledging that maybe he'd misremembered a lot along the way, "But how could I ever be sure?"
Everyone grieves differently and being privy to the author's side of things was certainly illuminating and left me pondering.
Thank you to Doubleday Books and Netgalley for an ARC of this book.
I liked Stay True's exploration of culture, identity and belonging but found myself being bored for the most part. I did not get most of the references and musicians (or at least that's who I assumed they are) nor could I picture the setting and vibes, so all of it felt really dry to me.
Nevertheless, I appreciate Hua Hsu sharing his experiences as a college student, the son of Taiwanese immigrants and a zine lover while navigating life and relationships (both platonic and romantic) as well as trying to find his place in the world. I found it striking how he seemed to eschew all things mainstream but was oh so very hipster.
In this reflective memoir, the author also grapples with the death of a friend and the guilt that comes with it. One part that stuck out to me in particular was when a mutual friend asked, "Were you and Ken really that close?" and Hua Hsu "panicked", acknowledging that maybe he'd misremembered a lot along the way, "But how could I ever be sure?"
Everyone grieves differently and being privy to the author's side of things was certainly illuminating and left me pondering.
Thank you to Doubleday Books and Netgalley for an ARC of this book.
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