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swbunn's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-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
Beautiful and engaging.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Physical abuse, and War
Moderate: Cancer, Homophobia, and Sexual content
Minor: Domestic abuse and Abortion
gvstyris's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-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
4.75
I had thought sex was to breach new ground, despite terror, that as long as the world did not see us, its rules did not apply. But I was wrong.
The rules, they were already inside us.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is an epistolary novel defined by its premise: the letter's intended recipient -- the main character's mother -- is illiterate, and will thus never read it. This permits a unique vulnerability, which, in addition to Vuong's lyrical prose and sensitivity towards his characters, is perhaps the greatest strength of this narrative.
That being said, I understand why this novel won't be for everyone. Our protagonist, Little Dog, tells his life story through a series of non-linear digressions that echo his mind's messy categorisation of 20+ years of memories. Little Dog himself notes that "I'm not telling you a story so much as a shipwreck--the pieces floating, finally legible." It's a structure quite uncommon in Western literature, utilising the Japanese narrative technique of kishōtenketsu to reject a clear plot in favor of replicating reality. Vuong's writing asked me to reconsider what it means to write a "novel," and I'm completely in awe of his creative process. I'm similarly excited to check out more of his poetry.
On an emotional level, I found Little Dog's story of coming-of-age (or as Vuong puts it, "coming-of-art") as a queer Vietnamese-American boy to be incredibly eye-opening. His empathy towards his grandmother/mother's struggles with PTSD really stuck with me, as well as his consideration of his place in wider American culture. In truth, I initially struggled to read about Little Dog's relationship with queerness because of its emphasis both on physicality/sex and trauma. I've since finished the novel, however, with an increased understanding of why we need to represent a range of queer experiences -- and do so with sensitivity.
What a read. I'll leave you with another line of Vuong's beautiful prose:
That being said, I understand why this novel won't be for everyone. Our protagonist, Little Dog, tells his life story through a series of non-linear digressions that echo his mind's messy categorisation of 20+ years of memories. Little Dog himself notes that "I'm not telling you a story so much as a shipwreck--the pieces floating, finally legible." It's a structure quite uncommon in Western literature, utilising the Japanese narrative technique of kishōtenketsu to reject a clear plot in favor of replicating reality. Vuong's writing asked me to reconsider what it means to write a "novel," and I'm completely in awe of his creative process. I'm similarly excited to check out more of his poetry.
On an emotional level, I found Little Dog's story of coming-of-age (or as Vuong puts it, "coming-of-art") as a queer Vietnamese-American boy to be incredibly eye-opening. His empathy towards his grandmother/mother's struggles with PTSD really stuck with me, as well as his consideration of his place in wider American culture. In truth, I initially struggled to read about Little Dog's relationship with queerness because of its emphasis both on physicality/sex and trauma. I've since finished the novel, however, with an increased understanding of why we need to represent a range of queer experiences -- and do so with sensitivity.
What a read. I'll leave you with another line of Vuong's beautiful prose:
All this time I told myself we were born from war--but I was wrong, Ma. We were born from beauty.
Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence--but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction and Sexual content
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, and War
Minor: Child abuse and Medical content
arainey's review against another edition
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Abortion, Toxic friendship, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Dementia and Car accident
kimac2's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
A little slow to get into, but quite beautiful. Heartbreaking but hopeful at the same time. The audiobook was very good I enjoyed hearing it in the author’s voice.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Racism, and Abortion
Moderate: Homophobia and War
lfp_reading's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I know a lot of people absolutely adore this book. And it’s not that I disliked it — 3.5/5 is a 70% rating, after all — it just didn’t quite live up to the hype for me.
Written as a letter from the son of a Vietnamese immigrant to a mother who cannot read, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous covers a lot of emotional themes in its 240 short pages, from family and generational trauma, to war, to personal identity and the human experience.
Vuong is first and foremost a poet. This definitely comes across in his prose, and despite my final rating there were many beautiful individual quotes that I picked out and saved. However, this writing style (I saw a TikTok reviewer describe it as “1000 slam poetry entries disguised as a novel” 🤣) meant that the narrative often jumped around and I struggled to connect with the characters and their stories as a result.
Undoubtedly an important and poignant read and I'm glad I added it to my repertoire, it just didn’t quite live up to the very high expectations I had set for it (which is probably more of a me problem!)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Sexual content
Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, and War
gaypoetree's review against another edition
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!
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!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Terminal illness, Violence, Xenophobia, and War
Moderate: Homophobia, Mental illness, Racism, and Sexual content
Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
druti's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
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
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Drug use, Homophobia, Racism, and War
revolverreads's review against another edition
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].
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, and Mental illness
Moderate: Child abuse
violetbentbackwards1036's review against another edition
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail