Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis (from Goodreads): In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken--with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity--is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes 'zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn't seem to have a place for either of them. But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the textbook successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet. Review: One of the great pleasures of reading is latching onto a phrase that seems as though it was made for you, for your singular pair of eyes. My phrase: “Tatung rice cooker.” For nearly my whole life, my paternal grandparents have owned a Tatung rice cooker—a bright orange metal pot resting on four stubby legs, held down by a shiny steel lid and proud of its two settings: cook and keep warm. That rice cooker has fed my father’s side for well over twenty years, as the family expanded from seven to twenty-one. Seeing it represented in Stay True feels like a thin line spun out from Hua Hsu to me (probably more accurately and clinically known as the Taiwanese diaspora). One of Stay True’s greatest strengths is Hsu’s ability to draw together decades of immigrant history while also leaving room for Hsu’s personal story—the story of him and Ken. It is a testament to how Asian-American lives are built on the sacrifices of parents and grandparents, and how the journey to define oneself as American must coexist with those sacrifices. Hsu contextualizes Asian-American life—the history of which is still evolving in the United States today—providing a brief history as well as a memoir of his own life. Simultaneously, the book is a meditation on the mosaic of youth: the late-night dinners and the baseball caps and the brief glimmers of growing up. It is not just about who Ken was but about what Ken meant to his friends—the bonds that never leave one’s mind, regardless of the years or miles that pass. Hsu rejects the notion that youth is something to grow out of, to leave behind. The feelings felt then, and the experiences had then, continue on. What the moment brings: that forward-facing dimension of friendship, the knowledge that you will grow old, or apart, and that you may one day need each other in some presently unimaginable way.
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From the ArchiveWhile my main reviews are organized by seasons and I try to write reviews immediately after I finish reading, there are always stories that lose to the hustle and bustle of everyday life. From the Archive is a redemptive collection of mini-reviews of books I read in the past that continue to captivate me.
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