Stay True

Hua Hsu's touching memoir hits all the right notes for me as a fellow member of Generation X -- early experiments with the Internet, turning up the nose at frat boys who liked Dave Matthews, and so on. But the book is, of course, about friendship, and it all rings true. I don't think it is a spoiler to say that near the end of the book Hsu observes that with his friends from college, they could have stayed together forever or drifted apart -- a sobering reminder of the small events or chance happenings on which friendships sometimes hinge. Hsu's book is moving, tragic, thoughtful, funny, and I couldn't stop reading it. Top notch.

Couldn't put this memoir down. Hsu's observations include touching considerations of his relationship with his Taiwanese parents from his early childhood to the long distance relationship with his father as a teenager. Then he summons great memories of early college friendship. There is music here and early internet exuberance along with a heavy recollection of a traumatic loss in the throes of self discovery.