Stay True is a 2022 memoir by Hua Hsu, published by Anchor Books and Doubleday, both imprints of Penguin Random House.

He would stay at home on Friday nights and read or listen to music, believing that other people had little to offer him intellectually.

Hsu did not drink, as he stated: "I couldn't imagine letting down my inhibitions around people I'd be silently judging the whole time."

Ken listened to the Dave Matthews Band and wore Abercrombie & Fitch clothing, all of which Hsu found unappealing and pedestrian.

Ken was Japanese-American, and his family had been in the United States for generations, already (as Hsu believed) seamlessly integrated into American society.

Szalai further stated: "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.

It’s not enough to classify Stay True as a friendship memoir, or a coming-of-age story, a tale of immigration and assimilation, or a philosophical reflection.

It is all these things and more, wrapped up in a meticulous rendering of a 90s California adolescence..."[7] Writing for The Washington Post, Charles Arrowsmith stated: "For all the soul-searching, therapeutic work and years of rumination imprinted on "Stay True", it's the ache of a friendship lost but honored that will linger for readers.