Hosoi

June 25, 2012
You don't have to like skateboarding to like Hosoi. Brilliantly written with Chris Ahrens, Hosoi's memoir does more than tell-all; he includes extended passages written by friends and more than 100 photos to show how he rose to the top of his sport and turned it into art. Readers do have to tolerate a lot of second-hand smoke (from drugs) in the book, but this helps readers feel the gravity of addictions that brought Hosoi crashing to the bottom of the pipe. He vividly recounts the California skateboarding scene with friends and the illicit stuff they smoked, shot up, and swallowed. This tell-all and fall from grace is different from all the others in its rad truthfulness mixed in the end with evangelical fervor. Even in talking about faithfulness to his soon-to-be wife, it's embarrassingly honest. Somehow in all the autobiographical mix of self-deprecation and aggrandizement, his true desire shines through: "My hope and prayer is that you also meet the One and Only."