Scan barcode
corneliadolian's review against another edition
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Amazing memoir about growing up, forging identity, and finding belonging. Friendship, loss, music, college & counterculture in the late 90s Bay Area are among the catalysts and characters that bring this journey to life.
Hsu’s writing is precise, tender, thoughtful and deep. Sensitive and real, skirting the saccharine and solipsistic. Vibrant but never in your face. Sometimes funny, in the best of quiet sarcasm and self-deprecation. Resists cynicism and stereotypes.
Highly recommend to almost anyone.
Hsu’s writing is precise, tender, thoughtful and deep. Sensitive and real, skirting the saccharine and solipsistic. Vibrant but never in your face. Sometimes funny, in the best of quiet sarcasm and self-deprecation. Resists cynicism and stereotypes.
Highly recommend to almost anyone.
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
4.0
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.