A review by poenaestante
Stay True by Hua Hsu

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

I had a huge crush on Hua back in college when he was a senior and I was a sophomore.  I admired how "over it' he always seemed, dawdling about campus in his ratty thrift store clothing. He was already, at that time, a pretty great writer with impressive taste in music and movies. I had no idea about his friend Ken and what had happened until I read an interview with him a few months ago. In hindsight, I feel so silly, so bad that I was clueless about all this. I thought the brooding personality was hipster affect rather than true sorrow. No one told me. I could never have imagined....Not that there was anything I could have said or done to be helpful, but it would have maybe changed the way I approached Hua. Who knows? We were kids.

Hua is a masterful writer. and this is a moving book -- if at times, in the latter half, overly-ponderous and morose. What's the right way to show up and pay homage when something so inutterably horrible happens to someone you love? I do not know. That said, Hua makes a most valiant attempt at it, while telling a complicated and inspiring immigrant kid's coming-of-age story.
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