Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

255 reviews

jade_smith's review against another edition

emotional 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? It's complicated

4.5

This was a gorgeous novel. Perhaps the first time I’ve felt compelled to use the word “luminous” as an adjective. Ocean Vuong’s writing is breathtakingly beautiful. This is exactly the kind of so-called purple prose that I love — it straddles the line between prose and poetry so deftly. 

Part exploration of inter-generational trauma, part coming of age, part meditation on memory and the past, this is a staggering story delivered in immaculate style.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Vomit, Abortion, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pregnancy

Minor: Gun violence, Racial slurs, Rape, Blood, Excrement, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Classism

james1star's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense 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

This was truly an exceptional book with harrowing content juxtaposing beautiful, exquisite writing. Vuong being a poet meant his novel debut read this way but he’s also pinpoint in what he wants to say and doesn’t stray from the hard facts of this main character’s existence. It’s a letter from ‘Little Dog’ writing to his mother Rose who doesn’t speak or understand English so you can tell it’s all unashamedly honest. He speaks about a lot: the generational trauma of the Vietnam war on his mum and grandmother Lan, their journey getting to America, the relationship he had with them and child/domestic abuse faced at the hands of his mother, the immigrant experience, a relationship with a boy, Trevor, and in general what is like living in his Queer Vietnamese American body in contemporary USA. The boy he once loved deals with a opioid addiction brought on by taking Oxy and Vuong talks about this drug crisis in America, how it developed and the general destructive, horrible nature of drugs detailing addiction, overdoses and loss of so many young people to it - truly a heartbreaking fact. 

I don’t have any negatives to say regarding this book, it’s difficult to read for sure but every part needs to be spoken about. Vuong portrays the story amazingly and many parts will stay with me for a long time. I underlined and saved lots of quotes, some of my absolute faves/most meaningful I’ll share here but be warned of a few spoilers. 

‘The monarchs that fly south will not make it back north. Each departure, then, is final. Only their children return; only the future revisits the past.’ 

And a bit later: ‘Maybe a survivor is the last one to come home, the final monarch that lands on a branch already weighted with ghosts.’ 

‘Our mother tongue, then, is no mother at all—but an orphan […] to speak in our mother tongue if to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.’ 

‘…sometimes I don’t know what or who we are. Days I feel like a human being, while other days I feel more like a sound. I touch the world not as myself but as an echo of who I was.’ 

‘Your hands are hideous—and I hate everything that made them that way. I hate how they are the wreck and reckoning of a dream. […] I hate and love your battered hands for what they can never be.’ 

‘And because I am your son, I said, “sorry.” Because I am your son, my apology had become, by then, an extension on myself. It was my hello.’ 

‘I didn’t want to use the Vietnamese word for it—pê-dê—from the French pédé, short for pédéraste. Before the French occupation, our Vietnamese did not have a name for queer bodies—because they were seen, like all bodies, fleshed and of one source—and I didn’t want to introduce this part of me using the epithet for criminals.’  - this whole section exceptional and left be speechless, goosebumps all the way up my arm. 

‘To see yourself still yourself is a refuge men who have not been denies cannot know.’

‘In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhó. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Con nhó mę knông? I flinch, thinking of you meant, Do you remember me? / I miss you more then i remover you.’

‘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.’

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse

Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Racism, Xenophobia, and War

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Cancer, Homophobia, Sexual content, Grief, and Abortion

erinjeanhussey's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Racism, Xenophobia, Abandonment, and War

teh_niarr's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and War

Moderate: Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, and Xenophobia

superjesssica's review against another edition

emotional funny 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

5.0

”I am writing you from inside a body that used to be yours. Which is to say, I am writing as a son.”

A letter from a son to his mother who cannot read. A complex and compelling non-linear story about a Vietnamese family (the boy Little Dog, his mother and grandmother) living in Hartford. The letter follows the past, present and future of Little Dog and his family, with all the pain, love and care that life brings with it. 

I cried until I got a headache reading this book. It is heavy, sad and beautiful all at once. The characters are deeply flawed (as people are) and their love isn’t always pretty. Ocean Vuong’s poetic prose is slow, thoughtful and haunting. One of my favorite reads ever. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, and War

gandalf_a's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse and Drug use

Moderate: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Cancer, Death, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, and Classism

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Car accident, Abortion, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

bursturb1cycle's review against another edition

emotional 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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Drug abuse, Homophobia, and Xenophobia

mhmmmichelle's review against another edition

inspiring 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? No

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Torture

Moderate: Homophobia, Violence, Xenophobia, and War

nica_chan's review against another edition

è la seconda volta che provo a leggere questo libro; nonostante sia nelle mie corde e la storia della famiglia di vuong sia molto importante da conoscere, qualcosa in questo libro non mi fa venire voglia di continuare a leggere. penso sia la scrittura, che trovo troppo lirica, quasi poetica e, per quanto meravigliosa, elegante ed elaborata, a me personalmente ha creato pesantezza e poca fluidità nella lettura.

avrei tanto voluto leggere questo libro fino in fondo; non fa per me e va bene così! proverò con il suo libro di poesie, magari è un medium che riesco ad apprezzare di più <3

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Racism, Xenophobia, and War

stephengiles's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

I was loving this book until about 70%. While I didn’t have a strong narrative thread and that was something I was enjoying it became a little too meandering and failed to stick landing. Overall I would strongly recommend it. It made me incredibly emotional and it’s unlike anything I’ve read before. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia and Xenophobia

Moderate: Drug abuse and Drug use