As the title suggests, this is an autobiographical novel chronicling the author’s own experiences, gradually unfolding through stories of youth. That’s true, but the book begins when the author was seventeen or eighteen. In other words, the memories from before then can be filed under “faint memories kept deep within,” but they can’t all be called “youth.” That’s what the saying “Flaws don’t obscure the virtues” means here. As the saying goes, “At ten, you have no worries; at twenty, you have no regrets.” Clearly, the author is describing a youth without regrets. From a naive teenager to a young adult in society, the author experienced sweet romance, sincere friendship, and warm family bonds, while also wrestling with the conflicts and complications where these three kinds of emotion intersect. Love and friendship, friendship and family, family and love: these difficult choices kept pushing the author into the eye of the storm. Yet it was precisely in these impossible dilemmas, when every step was a struggle, that the author came to understand how to live and made the right choices, weathering every storm. But life is full of twists, and nothing stays the same. When nightmares swallowed all that was good, optimism turned into self-destruction, unreasonable behavior made the author out to be a criminal for the ages, and things that had to be kept secret became mere fabrications. Then the nightmares faded and reality set in, bringing the challenges of choosing a career, shouldering living expenses, and coping with work pressure. The journey was a tumultuous one, full of hardship and twists and turns.
