Absolutely fantastic memoir about growing up as a child of immigrants in Santa Clara County, going to Cal, friendship, and grief. Hsu narrates and is fantastic. This book was an odd listen for me, as I went from Santa Clara County to Cal less than 10 years before he did--he mentioned places in SCC that I also frequented, he lived in the same dorm complex at Cal as I did, he mentions an event that took place at Cal when I was there. My college roommate and good friend was also from San Diego, and I went and visited. It very close, but also removed--the places at Cal were the same, but we had no email for undergrads.

The tragedy in this book is so sad--here, I feel like the parent I am. As he discusses his time in SCC and at Cal, I relate to him. But when it comes to his friend's death, I relate to the friend's parents. It is so painfully sad for everyone and he has written quite the tribute to his friend. ( )

65

as is so often the case, i have a bit of a meh relationship with pulitzer winners. i appreciate the tribute he was paying to his friend and his family, and we grew up at the same time so some of the cultural touchpoints were familiar, but i guess i just couldn't relate to this and his writing didn't make me care to try. that said, there were some very poignant parts and i do want to acknowledge how awful losing a friend to violence like that must shake and shape a person.

"The first generation thinks about survival; the ones that follow tell the stories."

"There comes a moment for the immigrant's child when you realize that you and your parents are assimilating at the same time." ( )

It’s a beautifully rendered reflection on the complexities of life, memory, and finding one’s true self.

So much in here resonates with me. The ways that identity and friendship evolve in the college years. The centrality of music. I appreciate the theory and digging to understand. The grappling with what friendship is. The attempt to recapture college in the 90s, before photos of everything. The willingness to put as uch out there as he can and try to understand and try again to understand differently. ( )

I normally would never respond to another reader's review but the extremely ignorant person from the Netherlands below does not seem to understand how identity works in America, probably because they are from a fairly racially homogenous country (and yes," Dutch Indonesian" is actually an identity that people 'talk about' because the colonization of Indonesia by the Dutch had lasting effects for the people colonized). Hsu's mention of "Asian-Americans" was actually extremely relevant and important to the story- "Asian American" is an identity that emerged in the US in the 1960s to describe the generations of Asian people who were born in America and the unique experience they had compared to other Americans and to their immigrant parents. Hsu goes into great detail several times about how everything from love to community to communication to hobbies to school to familial expectations differ between Asian Americans whose parents were immigrants (like his) or those who were born in the US (like Ken's). This is not 'division' or 'a habit' but useful language to describe a specific experience. The fact that you are ignorant of this and assume it's because of Dutch superiority is amusing.

Anyway, this was a fantastic book chiefly about identity, grief, history, and friendship. One of the most beautiful books I've read recently. Don't worry about 'sympathy' or 'relating' or whatever whatever, this book is non-fiction, so analyzing it like fiction doesn't make sense. The people in the story are presented as they were. and their relationship to the reader is inconsequential. Also, if you don't like books that are 'self-involved,' I humbly suggest that memoir is not the genre for you. ( )

What I immediately hated in this autobiography is the typical American habit of labeling everyone as "Asian American", "African American". I am glad that here (the Netherlands) we do not talk about 'Indonesian Dutch' or 'Chinese Dutch'.
It felt like I was sitting in the living room of someone who filled his life with so many nonsensical things, blindly following the discriminatory Black Panthers, listening to the most annoying music from the nineties. Hardly adding anything to the world with his zines. Anyway, to some extent it is very recognizable, after all I lived through that time too, only a few years older than Hsu.
Perhaps the critics who praise his book so highly are all from his generation? The generation that now sees ghosts and ruin everywhere, crying in a corner because Trump won.
In no way can I have sympathy or empathy for the author, other than for his friend who occasionally shows in this book that there was also someone around who used his brains every now and then.
It's a shame that he sometimes allowed himself to be so carried away and manipulated by the main character.
Yet he 's the most lovable in the whole book.

Done, but Ken is never to be forgotten, the boy is no more, and what is still there is Hsu's swan song, which at least gave us a glimpse into the lives of both students. ( )

A heartfelt memoir primarily about the author's years as a college student at Cal Berkley. He is the son of parents who come to the United States but later go back to their native land Taiwan. The book mainly chronicles his experiences as he struggles to fit in. He becomes a writer early on and fashions his own "zine". Music is also a big influence on him which he inherits from his father's love of Classic Rock. A well thought out introspective work. ( )

Knowing, in retrospect, that he has been made to be around such people, we cannot be surprised Tao Lin has been destroyed; yet it remains possible to conceive of a future-novel characterized by a still-further-concentrated corn-syrup self-involvement, and we must destroy ourselves reading these books if we wish to prepare to face it. ( )

A heartbreaking memoir about self-discovery, unexpected friendship, and unfathomable loss. ( )

The author read this audiobook, one of the more engaging and beautiful audiobooks I have enjoyed recently. Hua Hsu is a Taiwanese American born in 1977. He won a Pulitzer for this book written in 2022, which focuses on his college years in the 1990s and particularly on his friendship with a Japanese American named Ken, who was murdered in a carjacking. He admits that his memories do not translate to facts and yet tell a true story of how he remembers them and how his search for meaning affected his growth during college.

Much of the first part of this memoir outlines Hsu’s search for Asian identity at Berkeley. He was continually searching to reinvent himself and rebrand his image through the music and films of the day. This aspect of his story contributed to many relatable passages since so many of us as youngsters marked time by the popular music that spoke to us. Of course, another universal development during young adulthood is the formation of friendships, defining friends, and engaging in meaningful conversations. When Hsu befriended Ken, he realized how comforting it was to have conversations with mutual understanding and satisfaction. They shared philosophical thoughts and discovered themselves through each other’s experiences.

When Ken is murdered, Hua Hsu holds onto the pain for many years. Although some of his feelings could be attributed to the typical stages of grief, for him, it was more than that and almost obsessive at times, defining too much of his being. Finally, while attending graduate school at Harvard, a counselor helped him define the importance of Ken’s death in his overall coming of age, and he put it in perspective. He promised to write about it someday, and this book is the result of that promise to himself.

The text is rich with lots of tidbits to consider in one’s own life. Some of my takeaways are:
-He and Ken had long conversations about culture and projecting different versions of themselves.
-Asian American stereotypes are often subtle yet pronounced
-Gifts, by their nature, lead to delayed reciprocity and strengthen relationships and bonds in a community
-Navigating the immigrant experience is essential when considering cultural mores.
-Intergenerational conflict is universal.
-What is History? by Edward Carr is a book that discusses the history, facts, the bias of historians.
See my reviews at https://quipsandquotes.net/ ( )

33. Stay True by Hua Hsu
reader: the author
OPD: 2022
format: 5:28 audible audiobook (208 pages in hardcover)
acquired: May 11 listened: May 11-18
rating: 4
genre/style: Memoir theme: random audio
locations: Illinois, Texas, Cupertino and Berkley California, and Taiwan.
about the author: 1st-generation American of Taiwanese descent, author and academic at Bard College in New York City, and staff writer at the New Yorker. Born in 1977.

Scanning the recent Pulitzer Prizes, this memoir caught my attention. The audiobook samples well, read by the author (whose young-sounding voice makes a nice imitation of the college-self he portrays.)

This is really thin stuff, but it comes around, ties the plain beginning into the morning meaningful end, making for some impact. I was moved and enjoyed it. Hua Hsu is the son of Taiwanese immigrants who came to the US to study. He was born in Illinois. Later grew up in Cupertino, CA even as his father returned to Taiwan. The book is mostly about his days at UC Berkley in the late 1990's, and the lessons he learned there about life, along with a tragedy he had to manage. Of course, he has to make it do a bit more than that for the book be any good. He does.

2023
https://www.librarything.com/topic/348551#8148805 ( )

(18) This is a memoir by a first generation Chinese-American man whose college friend at Cal Berkeley is senselessly murdered when they are seniors. His memoir deals with the typical first generation immigrant trials, perhaps the tropes regarding the model minority of Asian-Americans, the navel-gazing trials of being a young adult searching for an identity, and the meaning of friendship, memory and grief. It starts of tremendously - poignant and gripping but eventually descends into a bit of a mess of fuzzy philosophy and sentiment that was hard to swallow.

I loved Hua's relationship with his parents (his father's faxes; so endearing) and his descriptions of college friendships - mix tapes, driving at night, and smoking cigarettes - quintessential 90's. I felt it in my heart and bones. I also loved Ken - I have a first generation Korean-American friend named Ken who seems as if he was this Ken in college, except that he is still very much alive. And picturing my friend added a haunting vibe to the reading experience. But the book really went downhill after the murder - I am still not sure what the hell the author was trying to say after that. Just too obscure and discursive and disconnected with the history, and the random snippets of his post-college life, his therapy sessions. I almost read in one or two sittings until I got to the final 1/3rd or so resulting in the whole experience being a near miss for me.

So - mixed feelings. Flashes of brilliance, admixed with a feeling of - Huhn? Why exactly are you writing memoir, again? What is your point here? Anyway, anyone who went to a liberal arts college in the 1990's and I suspect any first generation college-educated Asian-Americans of a certain age ~ 40's maybe - will enjoy parts if not all of this fairly slim memoir. ( )

This memoir made many best of 2022 lists. I don't have to relate to the author in order to enjoy a memoir. I don't believe that is the reason why this book did not come to life for me. It was overly self-involved and claustrophobic without any emotional resonance. ( )

Hsu has penned an impressive tale of friendship, self-identity and loss as he transports readers back to 1990s culture. The author has skillfully demonstrated how a compelling story can be more effective if it’s told without linguistic acrobatics or time-bending narratives. His memoir captures that fragile and often confusing period in our lives when we approach adulthood. Some reviewers have faulted the author for being self-absorbed. This characteristic is tough to avoid when an author is writing a heartfelt memoir. I thoroughly enjoyed “Stay True.” ( )

This angst-ridden, melancholy, yet at times pretentious memoir really captures the feel of Hsu's formative years, but those qualities can also make it unattractive. ( )

nonfiction /memoir - American-born child of Taiwanese parents deals with grief, guilt and the death of a close college friend at UC Berkeley.

This seemed to be an awful lot of self-absorbed drivel, most of which wasn't particularly relatable (unless you are a PhD-type person that also likes to philosophize ad nauseum and name-drop to try to impress people? Do you subscribe to The New Yorker so you can feel superior to others? if this describes you, go ahead and knock yourselves out.) I did like the thoughtful fax transmissions between him and his overseas dad, and the account of the time period directly following Ken's death had a relatable narrative, but most of the rest really had very little meaning to anyone besides the author.

I really hope this publisher isn't one of those 'we already have one POC writer so we don't need to bother considering any others' because then everyone really gets a bum deal. ( )

biography, memories, nonfiction, Asian Americans, Asian-experiences, Asian-cultures, cultural-assimilation, cultural-differences, cultural-diversity, family-dynamics, friendship, narrative, grief*****

Stay true to yourself, your heritage, what you once had with an irreplaceable friend in spite of life and other changes as time irrevocably moves on. This is the message I got from this moving expression of a life.
I requested and received an e-book copy from Doubleday Books via NetGalley. Thank you! ( )