Stay True by Hua Hsu

BATB score: 8/10 🤩

*Pulitzer Prize Winner 2023 for outstanding public service and achievement in American journalism; Hua Hsu is a second-generation Taiwanese American immigrant*

Best to: eloquently written *clap clap* captivating becoming-of-age memoir with a little tragedy; there were moments when I was bored but it’s art

BATB lingering thought: so how would you describe friendship?

“Everybody likes something - a song, a movie, a TV show - so you choose not to; this is how you carve out space for yourself. But the right person persuades you to try it, and you feel as though you’ve made two discoveries. One is that this thing isn’t so bad. The other is a new confidant.” wha, so beautiful

Best as: a warm sensation from word composition; fun fact, this book is actually a bunch of scribbles in Hua Hsu journal not intended to be publish, better yet 15K USD Pulitzer Prize winning

Best for: writing books is an art form; reading books is art appreciation; and thus, not for everyone

Best quotes: “For a while, you were convinced that you would one day write the saddest story ever.”

“You were free to name your children after U.S. presidents. Or you might name them something unpronounceable, since they would never be president anyway.”

“The first generation thinks about survival; the ones that follow tell the stories.”

“Friendship rests on the presumption of reciprocity, of drifting in and out of one another’s lives, with occasional moments of wild intensity.”

“I wondered in my journal if death was worse than the knowledge that the world continues outside.”

“History is a tale we tell, not a perfect account of reality. You just have to figure out whether you trust the storyteller.”