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crw1303's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
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? It's complicated
4.0
Beautifully written evocative and reflective story about a Vietnamese boy’s experience growing up in the US.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Racism, and War
sammykat's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-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
4.75
This book will stay with me for a long time.
In parts beautiful, in parts funny, in parts harrowing. The storytelling is done through letters containing memories, stories and vignettes from the protagonist and his family. The imagery is gorgeous, with each thing described in detailed metaphors invoking real life, emotions, time periods.
Although some parts are upsetting, the book is also uplifting and hopeful. It speaks of better futures.
The LGBT+ elements were beautifully done, sensitive and believable. Similarly, the drugs, pain and deaths were not just plot points to move the story on, but integral elements of the world Vaugn is building for us.
In parts beautiful, in parts funny, in parts harrowing. The storytelling is done through letters containing memories, stories and vignettes from the protagonist and his family. The imagery is gorgeous, with each thing described in detailed metaphors invoking real life, emotions, time periods.
Although some parts are upsetting, the book is also uplifting and hopeful. It speaks of better futures.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Drug abuse
Moderate: Death, Violence, and War
aweil2's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
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? It's complicated
5.0
This is literally my favorite book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, and Racism
kiiroreads's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- 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
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and War
camifestari's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-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? N/A
5.0
raw and beautiful~
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Violence
Minor: Animal cruelty
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.
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
gloriabyrd's review
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, and War
modryzamek's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
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? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Violence, Grief, Car accident, Abortion, Alcohol, and War
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Homophobia, and Sexual content
Minor: Death and Racial slurs
boywonder's review against another edition
challenging
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
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, and Suicide
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Racism, and Violence