Hua Hsu

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.… (mehr)