I normally would never respond to another reader's review but the extremely ignorant person from the Netherlands below does not seem to understand how identity works in America, probably because they are from a fairly racially homogenous country (and yes," Dutch Indonesian" is actually an identity that people 'talk about' because the colonization of Indonesia by the Dutch had lasting effects for the people colonized). Hsu's mention of "Asian-Americans" was actually extremely relevant and important to the story- "Asian American" is an identity that emerged in the US in the 1960s to describe the generations of Asian people who were born in America and the unique experience they had compared to other Americans and to their immigrant parents. Hsu goes into great detail several times about how everything from love to community to communication to hobbies to school to familial expectations differ between Asian Americans whose parents were immigrants (like his) or those who were born in the US (like Ken's). This is not 'division' or 'a habit' but useful language to describe a specific experience. The fact that you are ignorant of this and assume it's because of Dutch superiority is amusing.

Anyway, this was a fantastic book chiefly about identity, grief, history, and friendship. One of the most beautiful books I've read recently. Don't worry about 'sympathy' or 'relating' or whatever whatever, this book is non-fiction, so analyzing it like fiction doesn't make sense. The people in the story are presented as they were. and their relationship to the reader is inconsequential. Also, if you don't like books that are 'self-involved,' I humbly suggest that memoir is not the genre for you. ( )

What I immediately hated in this autobiography is the typical American habit of labeling everyone as "Asian American", "African American". I am glad that here (the Netherlands) we do not talk about 'Indonesian Dutch' or 'Chinese Dutch'.
It felt like I was sitting in the living room of someone who filled his life with so many nonsensical things, blindly following the discriminatory Black Panthers, listening to the most annoying music from the nineties. Hardly adding anything to the world with his zines. Anyway, to some extent it is very recognizable, after all I lived through that time too, only a few years older than Hsu.
Perhaps the critics who praise his book so highly are all from his generation? The generation that now sees ghosts and ruin everywhere, crying in a corner because Trump won.
In no way can I have sympathy or empathy for the author, other than for his friend who occasionally shows in this book that there was also someone around who used his brains every now and then.
It's a shame that he sometimes allowed himself to be so carried away and manipulated by the main character.
Yet he 's the most lovable in the whole book.

Done, but Ken is never to be forgotten, the boy is no more, and what is still there is Hsu's swan song, which at least gave us a glimpse into the lives of both students. ( )

A heartfelt memoir primarily about the author's years as a college student at Cal Berkley. He is the son of parents who come to the United States but later go back to their native land Taiwan. The book mainly chronicles his experiences as he struggles to fit in. He becomes a writer early on and fashions his own "zine". Music is also a big influence on him which he inherits from his father's love of Classic Rock. A well thought out introspective work. ( )

Knowing, in retrospect, that he has been made to be around such people, we cannot be surprised Tao Lin has been destroyed; yet it remains possible to conceive of a future-novel characterized by a still-further-concentrated corn-syrup self-involvement, and we must destroy ourselves reading these books if we wish to prepare to face it. ( )

A heartbreaking memoir about self-discovery, unexpected friendship, and unfathomable loss. ( )