Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

142 reviews

hannahnadeshda's review against another edition

dark emotional funny inspiring reflective sad tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and War

kelisabeth's review

challenging emotional sad slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Grief, Abortion, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

chaosbumblebee's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

Such a beautiful book it makes me want to go back and lower my rating of everything else so that this is the only 5 star read I have this year--or ever. Heartbreaking, poignant, perfect and imperfect, Vuong puts words to feelings I didn't know words could be put to. I need to call my mom.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

ameliasbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

More thoughts to come.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Abandonment, War, and Deportation

Moderate: Gun violence and Car accident

jefferz's review against another edition

emotional inspiring 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

1.5

I knew full well going into it that Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous was not going to play to my preferred tastes and interests at all, but I still wanted to give it a try anyway to expand my reading experiences. Unfortunately my initial impression was right. Despite how much I wanted to like the novel for its earnest, ambitious aspirations and to connect with the powerful content and memories, this was a complete stylistic miss for me. On Earth there were briefly moments that were impactful where I thought I would experience what so many others have loved in Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, but the presentation constantly disappointed me and ruined each moving moment rather than enhancing it.

Ordinarily I would and should’ve DNF’d this, but I stuck it out with hopes that it would get better since I was recommended this from a friend; it did slightly to an extent. Divided into three parts loosely based around Little Dog’s childhood, adolescence, and young adult/reflective years, I found the 3rd part to be the most impactful and moving. Focusing on themes of death, mortality, addiction, and familial caregiving, these themes were ones that I could understand and connect with the most compared to themes or feelings that were presented in the first two parts. The loss of a particular person that is redacted for spoilers was easily the most interesting part for me, one because of the context and impact this person had on Little Dog, but also because there were less excessive metaphors and poetic messing around.

At first I thought the metaphors layered with social and societal commentary were interesting and affected. However the initial interest faded along with my patience for how little narrative content there was, filled and covered by so much abstract poetry. What started off as insightful connections quickly began to feel like  constant reaching, with random phrases or off-hand tangents at every turn. The attempts at poetic connections and lyrical phrasing felt oddly impersonal and fragmented, which is at odds with the otherwise personal content. Sometimes less is more, I would’ve loved a more contained presentation that would allow the inspiring content and powerful narration to speak for itself. And to be clear, it’s not that I didn’t understand what the book was trying to do, far from that. I can tell a lot of love and effort was put in but ultimately the finished product felt like a mess and didn’t really give me a reason to care.

Despite being Asian American myself, I sometimes have a hard time reading or appreciating written portrayals or reflections on said Asian American experiences. This one however, appealed to me even less than others due to how convoluted the recollected “memories” were written. There were occasional moments that I thought were brilliant written, for example the following:

<blockquote>I am thinking of freedom again, how the calf is most free when the cage opens and it’s led to the truck for slaughter (calves raised for veal). All freedom is relative–you know too well-and sometimes it’s not freedom at all, nut 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 anyway, that widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough.”</blockquote>

Unfortunately for every quote or metaphor I thought was well done, there were another dozen metaphors or references that I felt had little relevancy or connection. I’ve read a few reviews that condemn Vuong’s writing for being pretentious, but that wasn’t the impression I got. Rather, I found the writing to be too free-flowing and ridiculously abstract. The memoir elements feel like a constant stream of thoughts, with no filter or editing. There were many times where I would start to get invested, only for the writing to go off on a metaphorical tangent (sometimes appropriately but more often randomly) and eventually loop back at the end after disrupting the flow. Other times Vuong would try to connect two different memories or concepts and ping pong back and forth with little finesse. Perhaps I’m too analytical and logical to follow or appreciate the artistic liberties at play, but I spent so much time re-reading stanzas, sitting there baffled at whatever the book was attempting, eventually getting it, then progressively losing my patience at how excessively unnecessary the prose was. The book also has a tendency to present events out of chronological order and ordinarily this is not a problem. However these events are connected to each other loosely by feeling(?) or theme, but the concept is so unfocused that the narration and moment feel lost and all over the place. I hoped that by the end of the book, the separate pieces and themes would be drawn together or somehow connect to the title, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Sadly the book didn’t do that, and the title concept is only really referenced in the closing two chapters with callbacks to part 1’s contents, yet few to part 2 or 3’s. And that’s disappointing since a lot of the individual content across all three parts seemed like excellent material to work with and something I would’ve appreciated if handled differently.

At the end of the day, I don’t regret picking this up to read as it’s a unique novel. However, I can’t say that I enjoyed reading it, both subjectively and objectively. I think that for those who are more empathetic or free-flowing thinkers, this writing style and collection of memoir moments are powerful and moving. But it just didn’t work at all for me. In many ways, the book is written like a memoir despite having loosely-inspired (yet also fictional? I don’t understand where the line is drawn) novel-esque elements. But combined as a memoir and a fictional story, it somehow fails to really pull off either concept with problems associated with his signature prose. I originally rated this one star while writing this review, but ultimately barely bumped it up to a two (honestly it's like a 1.5) due to being briefly gorgeous at times and its high aspirations (also it’s an insult to compare this to some of the other 1-star books I’ve previously reviewed). But make no mistake, this was a terrible choice for my reading preference and I’m happy to now move on to something else.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Homophobia, and Sexual content

Minor: Death and Racial slurs

eedle_cacleberry's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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

4.0

Ocean Vuong’s writing may be challenging to follow and understand, but that reflects the nature of memories.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Cancer, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, and War

Minor: Rape

katanai's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad tense 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? No

5.0

this was so, so raw. raw in the way your skin feels after getting sun burnt - hot, with a reassurance that after the initial burn, even the brush of your own clothes is going to make your skin sting for a couple of days because of it's rawness. but, reading this was also like being swept up in a river where everything flows so gently until the current picks up and you remember that you're in a river and you've never really known how to float, but you can swim, but the cold is eating at your skin and how long can you go? 

i already mentioned it but vuong's writing is so captivating and raw and there were several lines that made me cry, but the type of crying that builds up without you knowing and then suddenly you're crying silently. i think i've tapped too much, but this was so so raw without it being tryhard. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, and Sexual content

Moderate: Cancer, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and War

Minor: Abortion

theverycraftyvegan's review

reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.0

This book was difficult for me to get into and I felt dumb quite a few times for not being able to follow the writing style. I didn’t always understand what was happening, when, where, and with whom. I wonder if reading the physical copy would have been better for my brain. 

Little Dog’s narration jumps around through the years and generations of his family, sharing the hardships of their survival. Parts of the story are upsetting. Even though I am an emotional person I did not shed a single tear while listening to this book. Probably because I didn’t get into the story or characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

swifterel22's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

It's written so beautifully and talks about many important topics. 
This book moves you, shows you a horrible but very real in this world reality. The sentences were written so gorgeously that I couldn't help but highlight many of them and I felt like in some parts this novel read more like poetry.
I am so glad I finally got to reading it.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Ableism, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, Dementia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Outing, Cultural appropriation, and War

Minor: Cancer, Child abuse, Transphobia, and Abortion

voidfavors's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Terminal illness, Violence, and War