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challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
slow-paced
emotional
hopeful
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sad
fast-paced
This book will destroy you, and that's a recommendation--a rich rumination on friendship, narrating your own life, and being a true hater.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
emotional
sad
slow-paced
“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.”
There is that infamous quote from Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut that goes, “we are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful about who we pretend to be.” This memoir rewrites that quote a bit: “what we pretend to be is fragile in the wake of personal tragedy.”
I’ll be honest here: Hua Hsu, from this memoir, sounds like an insufferable asshole. His personality reminds me a bit of dudes who put that they’re only interested in deep conversation in their dating profiles, who treat the world around them that doesn’t align as not having value.
That’s probably a little unfair, but I kind of felt annoyed reading this at points. That cult of self really hits on these pages, but it’s one thing to reduce people’s value to the music they like or the content they consume.
Still, I liked this. Quite a bit. I enjoy Hsu’s observations on the facets of grief and other things.
There is that infamous quote from Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut that goes, “we are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful about who we pretend to be.” This memoir rewrites that quote a bit: “what we pretend to be is fragile in the wake of personal tragedy.”
I’ll be honest here: Hua Hsu, from this memoir, sounds like an insufferable asshole. His personality reminds me a bit of dudes who put that they’re only interested in deep conversation in their dating profiles, who treat the world around them that doesn’t align as not having value.
That’s probably a little unfair, but I kind of felt annoyed reading this at points. That cult of self really hits on these pages, but it’s one thing to reduce people’s value to the music they like or the content they consume.
Still, I liked this. Quite a bit. I enjoy Hsu’s observations on the facets of grief and other things.
I admire the author's prose and willingness to examine how the loss of a friend has shaped his life, but many of his descriptions of himself and his friend group reminded me of the annoying self-serious guys I avoided in college. I think this one was a case of "very good, but not for me."
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
lighthearted
sad
slow-paced