Stay True

Reviews / Votes

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 -- Patrick Radden Keefe, author of <i>Empire of Pain</i> and <i>Say Nothing</i> Impossible to put down . . . profoundly moving . . . a work of intellect, honesty and love * The Guardian * A remarkably moving account of male affection and grief * The Observer * A quiet, occasionally hilarious, ultimately devastating book . . . the most moving and memorable piece of autobiography I read this year. * The Independent, 'The Ten Best Books of 2023' * An exceptional portrait of male affection and a young life senselessly cut short * The Independent, 'Best Memoir: 2023' * A powerful and beautifully written meditation on guilt, memory and male friendship * The Guardian, 'Best Books of the Year' * 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 * The New York Times * A beautiful memoir that goes deep into the heart of friendships * The Financial Times * A luminous and tender-hearted story. . . Stay True is a nuanced and beautiful evocation of young adulthood in all its sloppy, exuberant glory * The Wall Street Journal * [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 * The Washington Post * This book is exquisite and excruciating and I will be thinking about it for years and years to come -- Rachel Kushner, author of <i>The Mars Room</i> Remarkable . . . an evocative coming-of-age story about the formation of identity, friendship, and grief * AnOther Magazine * 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 -- Ocean Vuong, author of <i>On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous</i> I was softly heartbroken by Stay True . . . [A] once-in-a-lifetime book -- Jia Tolentino, author of <i>Trick Mirror</i> 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 * Los Angeles Times * Funny and wise . . . What a gift it is to remember the people you loved, and who loved you, while you were busy becoming yourself * The Atlantic * Stay True is about the beautiful, unpredictable alchemy of how friendship-particularly male friendship-forms in the first place * GQ * A moving portrait of a persona undone by tragedy * Vogue * This book is going to break your heart. * The Australian *