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This is not what I expected.
Honestly, I had to stop and then ask myself what I actually expected and I guess I just didn’t think I would connect with this memoir as much as I did.
Even though we’re a generation apart, i felt like I was reliving my own college years and experiencing the feeling we have at that age of being limitless. I also grew up in the Bay Area as the daughter of Asian immigrant, so the resonance was very real for me.
Honestly, I had to stop and then ask myself what I actually expected and I guess I just didn’t think I would connect with this memoir as much as I did.
Even though we’re a generation apart, i felt like I was reliving my own college years and experiencing the feeling we have at that age of being limitless. I also grew up in the Bay Area as the daughter of Asian immigrant, so the resonance was very real for me.
For an emotional book, much of it was strangely detached
i won’t rate it, rating someone’s memoir is odd. but it broke my heart
A love letter to friendship. This book was golden-hued with nostalgia and that unique joy and iridescence of early-20s life. A heartfelt read that reckoned with new and old philosophical and political ideologies contextualised in 90s California.
I enjoyed this book thoroughly. The book reads like a story but feels like a journal. Hsu is unfiltered in the sense that he is honest about the way he discusses his past. He doesn’t cover up the fact that he was lowkey a music nerd that judged people for the type of music they listened to. Consequently, we are given a raw transformation of a person. Too often are we given a picture of perfection. There are times that I read this book and I cringed. Because I saw myself in the author especially in the most embarrassing parts. The way he was so eager to jump straight right into talking about Ken in therapy, his rather peculiar personality, I can see flickers in myself in him. As much as this book is about friendships, death, and growing up, this book felt so much different for me than others. I believe it was the wandering train of thought. Hsu doesn’t try to outwardly reliever any messages of friendships. They are subtlety intertwined in his retelling of stories. In the end, he realizes, despite all the therapy he realizes he still misses Ken. And I miss him too.
reflective
slow-paced
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
The book felt part political science article part memoir. I felt that the story needed more emotional rawness than it was able to give while explaining big themes and world history.
Friendship, grief, guilt, identity, growth. A slightly moody memoir, but it draws you in.