Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

49 reviews

milagrg's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Racism, Homophobia, War, and Cancer

Moderate: Suicide and Drug abuse

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis

k8lynn's review

dark emotional inspiring lighthearted sad slow-paced

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

5.0

trigger warnings to readers for drug use, violence towards animals, suicide, etc

most poetic & stunning book i have ever read. every sentence is gold, crafted so beautifully. i'm genuinely surprised my highlighter didn't die while reading, there were so many fantastic quotes. this book simultaneously broke my heart & healed it. there are so many extended motifs i love as well: the color pink, butterflies, flowers, singing/music, fire, the list goes on. Ocean Vuong is absolutely incredible. hands down one of the BEST books i have ever read. PLUS it's gay!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, War, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, and Drug use

itsyourpaldave's review

dark emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Suicide, and Xenophobia

novella42's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

I can still hear Vuong's gentle, relentless voice when I read quotes or pages from the hardcopy I finally picked up. Sometimes I read a little to remind the writer part of my brain how lyrical words work, and what kind of writer I want to be.

His author-read audiobook performance of this powerful book was nothing short of magnificent. 

A queer Vietnamese American man writes a letter to his mother, a survivor of the Vietnam War, who cannot read. His love for her, and hers for him, is ferocious and beautiful beyond words. Vuong is a poet, but strangely, I find his novel more compelling than his poetry. Tons of content warnings, to the degree I don't know when I will ever feel mentally resilient enough in my own C-PTSD to re-read it in its entirety, but if you're in the mood for a good cry, I can't think of anything more cathartic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Chronic illness, Blood, Homophobia, Car accident, Misogyny, War, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Self harm, Addiction, Sexual content, Animal death, Drug use, Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Racism, Toxic relationship, Grief, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Cancer, Abortion, Death of parent, Xenophobia, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Terminal illness, Alcoholism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Racial slurs, Excrement, Cursing, Colonisation, Sexual violence, Miscarriage, Gore, Pregnancy, Dementia, Suicide, Sexual assault, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Classism, Child death, Rape, Abandonment, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Deportation, Body horror, Sexism, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Police brutality, Torture, Cannibalism, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Mass/school shootings, Adult/minor relationship, War, Confinement, Fatphobia, Religious bigotry, and Murder

leahb88's review

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

So beautifully written, so descriptive and poetic. The extended metaphors that all came together at the end just absolutely unraveled my thinking. The story that the author weaves together through multiple generations and points in time left me feeling absolutely devastated… definitely one I will reread at some point.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Addiction, Homophobia, War, Death of parent, and Suicide

syubeebee's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

it took me ages to finish this book, even though it has all the characteristics i love in a book (very poetic writing, developed thoughts, intricate scenes, and it felt like a discussion with the main character during which we both think the same way but ok different matters…) i struggled to pick it up again every time i put it down despite how much i enjoyed it when i did 
still, very beautiful writing of an uncommonly said story 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Sexual content

Moderate: Suicide

sashagalkina's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and War

Moderate: Death, Homophobia, Racism, Abortion, and Addiction

Minor: Child abuse, Suicide, Terminal illness, Alcohol, and Sexual violence

virtualoz's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

1.5

I did not enjoy this book. There were moments that I loved but I was ultimately deceived by reviews of this book. There were usually two conflicting reviews. 1. This book is artistic and profound in the way “litttle dog” explains his story to his mom who can’t read. 2. The next review says there are exquisite writing style moments but this book was trying too hard in using the style of other great masterpieces which ultimately made it pretentious, and many sections of the book felt this way. I agree with the latter. I thought the book would be more simple in its reasoning for why on earth we’re briefly gorgeous. I wanted to like this book but the more and more I read and tried to like it, the more I wanted to stop reading. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and Sexual content

Moderate: Death, Suicide, and Violence

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal cruelty, and Abortion

libraryofcam's review against another edition

5.0

Some of the quotes I loved

“What do we mean when we say survivor? Maybe a survivor is the last one to come home, the final monarch that lands on a branch already weighted with ghosts.
[…]
To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse; both shelter and warning at once.
[…]
You're a mother, Ma. You're also a monster. But so am I— which is why I can't turn away from you. Which is why I haven’t taken god's loneliest creation and put you inside it.” (p13-14)

I don’t know if you’re happy, Ma. I never asked. (p32)

Because a bullet without a body is a song without ears. (p77)

Ma. You once told me that memory is a choice. But if you were god, you'd know it's a flood. (p78)

Do you ever wonder if sadness and happiness can be combined, to make a deep purple feeling, not good, not bad, but remarkable simply because you didn't have to live on one side or the other? (p122)

They say a song can be a bridge, Ma. But I say it's also the ground we stand on. And maybe we sing to keep ourselves from falling. Maybe we sing to keep ourselves. (p125)

Maybe we look into mirrors not merely to seek beauty, regardless how illusive, but to make sure, despite the facts, that we are still here. That the hunted body we move in has not yet been annihilated, scraped out. To see yourself still yourself is a refuge men who have not been denied cannot know. (p138)

We had decided, shortly after we met, because our friends were already dying from overdoses, to never tell each other goodbye or good night. (p169)

I'm writing you because I'm not the one leaving, but the one coming back, empty-handed. (p174)

[…] to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly. (p175)

They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it. (p176)

The thing is, I don't want my sadness to be othered from me just as I don't want my happiness to be othered. They're both mine. (p181)

The truth is we can survive our lives, but not our skin. (p182)

You and I, we were Americans until we opened our eyes. (p185)

I miss you more than I remember you. (p186)

I'm sorry I keep saying How are you? when I really mean Are you happy? (p192)

It was beauty, I learned, that we risked ourselves for. (p208)

All freedom is relative—you know too well—and sometimes it's no freedom at all, but simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they "free" wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders. But I took it any way, that widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough. (p216)

I remember learning that saints were only people whose pain was notable, noted. I remember thinking you and Lan should be saints. (p219)

All this time I told myself we were born from war—but I was wrong, Ma. We were born from beauty. (p231)

« “Hey," he said, half-asleep, "what were you before you met me?"
“I think I was drowning.”
A pause.
“And what are you now?" he whispered, sinking.
I thought for a second. "Water.” » (p237-238)

I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink of an eye, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly. (p238)

What we would give to have the ruined lives of animals tell a human story—when our lives are in themselves the story of animals. (p242)

 

Yeah that’s not all of them Ahahaha. This book was magical, a marvel. I loved it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Grief, Physical abuse, and War

Moderate: Suicide, Homophobia, Violence, and Xenophobia

Minor: Cancer, Sexual content, and Terminal illness

a_alves00's review

dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Suicide, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Grief, Physical abuse, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, War, Cancer, and Bullying