Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

320 reviews

nessreadsalot's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Written in the form of a letter from a Vietnamese son (Little Dog) to his mother who cannot read, this book is beautifully poetic.
Little Dog grew up with his mother and grandmother in America.  He brings us through the difficulties faced by the family as refugees with very little English. 
He details the constant abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother and also brings us through the story of the traumas faced by both his mother and grandmother which have influenced his life.
Little Dog also struggles with his mother's reaction to his sexuality and the joys and heartbreak he finds in his own relationship.

This was a heartbreaking and beautiful story and had me crying within minutes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Addiction, Homophobia, Child abuse, Excrement, Mental illness, and Drug abuse

fluciferbeingabstract's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Death, and Drug abuse

alinabkl's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Sexual content, and Death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Addiction, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Drug abuse, Abortion, Gun violence, Racism, War, Bullying, Drug use, Xenophobia, Pregnancy, Grief, Mental illness, and Colonisation

chrisljm's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Ocean Vuong writes so beautifully and so poetically. I felt I was able to enjoy this book because I saw it less as a novel and more as a poetic memoir in the form of vignettes, which he uses to narrate his experiences growing up as a child in the United States as a Vietnamese immigrant post-Vietnam war to a parent with PTSD. Vuong's writing is so vividly melancholic and haunting, and these feelings follow even during the soft vulnerability of his childhood and youth. There's so much introspection but also a stillness as if no matter how far time and space takes you, you will always be haunted by this current time, place, and feeling. 

I want to include one of my favorite quotes from the book: "I know you believe in reincarnation. I don’t know if I do but I hope it’s real. Because then maybe you’ll come back here next time around. Maybe you’ll be a girl and maybe your name will be Rose again, and you’ll have a room full of books with parents who will read you bedtime stories in a country not touched by war. Maybe then, in that life and in this future, you’ll find this book and you’ll know what happened to us. And you’ll remember me. Maybe." 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, War, Homophobia, Abortion, Drug use, Bullying, Animal death, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Animal cruelty, Fire/Fire injury, Cancer, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Racism, and Injury/Injury detail

kiandrareadsbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Addiction, Animal death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Abortion, Sexual content, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

arainey's review

challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Racism, Racial slurs, Grief, Emotional abuse, Animal death, Drug abuse, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Death, Cancer, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, Addiction, Physical abuse, Abortion, War, Toxic relationship, Mental illness, and Violence

Minor: Car accident and Dementia

jayg's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Mental illness, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Car accident, Colonisation, Domestic abuse, Death, Homophobia, Alcohol, Drug use, Excrement, Grief, Physical abuse, Violence, War, Drug abuse, Racism, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

gaypoetree's review

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

wa wa wa wa waaaaaa. I love poets! I LOVE POETS!!!!! I AM CRYING OVER HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me start by saying: when some people criticize the book as “too lyrical,” I understand and in some sense even agree. There are definitely lines in there that feel like they were inserted just because they sound poetic (though Vuong perhaps mocks this himself at one point, saying “that meant nothing but you have it now”), but that is very few lines in an almost frustratingly tightly-woven work. In some sense, those lines were a relief to me. I could brush something aside.

I don’t seek to rate books by perfection; that’s silly. Five stars, to me, is a work that made me consider the world in new ways, feel big feelings, and that I would– WILL– eagerly return to again and again. Check, check, check. Five-star book. The only book I own that is more dog-eared or underlined than this is the book that I used while writing my undergrad capstone.

To avoid this being too long, let me rest on what truly impressed me about the novel, and what edges it into prose poem territory in my mind: the very basic structure of the story reflects its overwhelmingly myriad and complex themes. I don’t just mean the way the switch between tenses relates to the conflict of switching between languages with different relationships to time, or how the invocation of parataxis as a poetic form also renders the characters as different images somehow modifying one another. I mean the little things, too. Theme: writing as a form of liberation that, yet, was given to the narrator by the oppressive culture. Expression: a repeated callback to beginning sentences with “and” or “because” (a thing he was taught never to do) in moments of resistance or of joy. Theme: navigating multiple languages of care, some of which are at odds with each other, often all at once. Expression: The abandonment of the epistolary form into something more obviously poetic when the narrator begins to speak of a personal trauma which is not familial, which his mother does not necessarily share. 

I need to stop before I get too excited again. Yeah dude. Good book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Drug abuse, Addiction, Xenophobia, Terminal illness, and Violence

Moderate: Racism, Sexual content, Mental illness, and Homophobia

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Child abuse, and Domestic abuse

revolverreads's review

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

There is very rarely a book picked by our Russian Roulette wheel that gets its claws into us from the first page and has us tearing up by the second. Part prose, part poetry, part cry-your-eyes-out, "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read, and it totally shattered us.

You begin by wondering what it is that Little Dog wants to tell his mother in this letter. Is it to let her know that despite the abuse and tumultuous childhood, he understands her? That he understands his mother is human and has lived a life full of horrors he could never imagine? Is that understanding now more painful, knowing that he has and will continue to live in a world where different horrors await him? It's a letter filled with pain, a generational hurt that has passed its way down from grandmother to mother to son, but it's also brimming with love. Amidst the pages of hurt, there is healing. For every negative memory and experience endured, there is hope and love. Despite the deep-rooted trauma, Little Dog, his mother, and Lan do what they can to shield each other in whatever ways they know.

Like many of the queer stories we have read on the Podcast so far, this narrative takes you on flashes through the timeline of their life so far. From childhood, to adolescence, to the present, Ocean Vuong manages to bring to life a full set of characters and their lifetimes, not a story that seems out of place or redundant. There is a fine line to toe when telling a traumatic story in a limited page count, but this book managed to pack a punch with each page. Complicated topics of abuse, trauma of war, self identity, and mental health are not mentioned flippantly, in fact just a line on a page manages to carry its underlying message across the memories being recounted. 

One Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous will have your attention from the first page, all the way until the end. It’s a book we’re positive won’t be out of our minds anytime soon. We’d love for you to join us as we get into much more detail on our podcast. Check us out at Revolver Reads: A Bookclub Russian Roulette on your podcast platform of choice, or simply @revolverreads on Instagram and let us know what you think. If you’d like to email us any future book suggestions for our roulette wheel, feel free to send them to [email protected].

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Drug abuse, Drug use, Bullying, and Homophobia

Moderate: Child abuse

violetbentbackwards1036's review

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Car accident, Cursing, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Torture, Addiction, Hate crime, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, Gore, Abandonment, Abortion, Terminal illness, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Cancer, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Animal death, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Sexual content, War, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Racism, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, Drug use, Grief, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy