Stay True (Paperback)

At once a coming-of-age memoir, a devastating elegy for a departed friend, and a mixtape of all the music and other shards of culture and experience that coalesce into an identity, Stay True is wildly original . . . A glorious, unforgettable book Impossible to put down . . . profoundly moving . . . a work of intellect, honesty and love A remarkably moving account of male affection and grief A remarkably moving account of male affection and grief . . . This beautiful book is a testament to the power of open-mindedness This book is exquisite and excruciating and I will be thinking about it for years and years to come Quietly wrenching . . . This is a memoir that gathers power through accretion — all those moments and gestures that constitute experience, the bits and pieces that coalesce into a life A beautiful memoir that goes deep into the heart of friendships A luminous and tender-hearted story. . . Stay True is a nuanced and beautiful evocation of young adulthood in all its sloppy, exuberant glory [Hsu writes] with devastating emotional precision, questioning the possibility of meaning in tragedy and the value of the stories we tell while attempting to find it . . . an extraordinary, devotional act of friendship Remarkable . . . an evocative coming-of-age story about the formation of identity, friendship, and grief A richly observed examination of grief, being an outsider and the healing power of art This is writing at its best . . . one of those books that is the sum total of a writer’s life in thinking, craft, and curiosity, made felt at last, so that when the sentences come, they come with a deliberate, patient, and precise force I was softly heartbroken by Stay True . . . [A] once-in-a-lifetime book Not since Ann Patchett wrote about her friend Lucy Grealy in Truth and Beauty has there been such an achingly tender book about a platonic friendship Funny and wise . . . What a gift it is to remember the people you loved, and who loved you, while you were busy becoming yourself Stay True is about the beautiful, unpredictable alchemy of how friendship—particularly male friendship—forms in the first place A moving portrait of a persona undone by tragedy