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doc_erinnicole's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.5
I have a habit of not reading synopses because I like to go in completely fresh. This doesn't always work out (sometimes I think a book is going to be one genre and it ends up being something else entirely) but sometimes, like this book, it is perfect. I highly suggest going into this book knowing nothing. Because then you'll be like me...the first 2/3 were fine but as I wrote to myself, "this is going to sound shady but I kept waiting for something to happen. Like a big rupture or something. And it never does…." But then it does and then all of a sudden you're on the bus reading and accidentally screaming "oh shit!" because you didn't see that coming. And it makes you want to re-read the whole book again knowing what you know now but you're also so happy you didn't know what you know when you started the book.
Hsu is a few years older than me but I was right there with him with so many of the references and remembrances. He is an excellent writer who writes incredible sentences (random example: <i> You make a world out of the things you buy. Everything you pick up is a potential gateway, a tiny, cosmetic change that might blossom into an entirely new you. </i> so simple, true and beautiful). I really enjoyed being inside of his head for awhile.
Hsu is a few years older than me but I was right there with him with so many of the references and remembrances. He is an excellent writer who writes incredible sentences (random example: <i> You make a world out of the things you buy. Everything you pick up is a potential gateway, a tiny, cosmetic change that might blossom into an entirely new you. </i> so simple, true and beautiful). I really enjoyed being inside of his head for awhile.
kygpub's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
a little embarrassed at how much i relate to hsu's self-pretensions (past and present), but this helped shed a light on the parts of grief and friendship which i had never realised before, but were hanging right there, in my periphery, all along. especially drawn to the section near the end on carr's what is history: the role of the memoir/ist in retro-narritivising history and proto-narrating the future, what it means to take on that role not only (self-)consciously, but purposefully, how consuming and creating media can be an act of commemoration, etc.
ynnctz's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0