Reviews with content warning for Grief - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Written in very flowery language, parts of this book felt like reading poetry. It explores themes of the migrant experience and trauma felt by those who have lived through and fled the was in Vietnam. There is also an interesting exploration on sexuality, with two lovable but very different characters. The novel was presented as a letter that the protagonist had written to his illiterate mum, where he focuses on key memories in his life with frequent flashbacks and jumps to other moments. Due to these jumps in chronology, it was at times a little difficult to decipher where abouts he was.

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reemoony's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-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

5.0

i used to be so pretentious when it came to giving books five stars. i thought they had to check this huge list of boxes, but they dont. if you enjoy a book, give it five stars. with that being said, i dont know if i enjoyed this book. it doesnt feel like a book you’re supposed to like, but you love it anyway. its gut-wrenching and hurtful and powerful and loving. it’s everything in the universe at once.

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bisexualwentworth's review

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

Ocean Vuong uses the English language in a more lyrical way that pretty much any other writer I can think of. His prose in this book is just as gorgeous as his poetry that I've read, and the way he connects concepts and images is breathtaking and heartbreaking by turns.

The use of the second person was striking and affecting. The novel is written as a letter from Little Dog to his mother, Rose, but the overall effect is basically a dual narrator situation. It works beautifully.

The content is difficult. I knew it would be. It's very much a mommy issues book, which is what I expected from Vuong based on his poetry collections.

It would be wrong to say that I enjoyed this. I didn't. I appreciate Vuong's craft. I was deeply moved by many aspects of the story. I was triggered and brought to tears. I thought a lot about family and identity. But it's not an enjoyable book. It's deeply harrowing.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is also autobiographical enough that I would feel weird about giving it a star rating, so I'm simply not going to at this time.

NOTE: This book does contain sexual scenes between teenagers. These scenes are not written for the titillation of readers and are instead in service to the characters' development, but I still think it's wise to warn readers of this going in.

Content Warnings