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

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

346 reviews

glorifiedloveletters's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

When a poet writes a novel, the sentences are going to be outstanding. I really loved a lot of this book full of love (both for one's family and for one's first), lust, loneliness, and longing, but there are definitely some scenes that are hard to read. And if you are squeamish about animal cruelty, this is not the book for you. Whew. I had to make an effort to think about other things after reading one particular scene involving a monkey.

Still, there is a lot of beauty to be found, with true and heartfelt writing that looks you straight in the eye to say, "This is how it felt to survive."

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laughingrecord's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

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writingcaia's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional 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

4.75

A son’s letter to his illiterate mother. A letter he knows she won’t read but still hopes she does, so she that knows his love, his anger, his forgiveness for her, his secrets and turmoil of emotions.
This is his story, a half Vietnamese American gay boy, with a ptsd (trauma induced) violent mother, a demented but so wise grandmother, an absent father, living in a bad neighbourhood, and him falling in love with a “white trash” addict boy. It is also about flashes of his mother and grandmother’s lives, the Vietnam War and the brutality, and extreme violence and destruction it imposed on the Vietnamese, like his mother and grandmother.
Like the lives of those we see through his eyes, his is hard and sad, but with moments of genuine enchantment and delight, the little things he treasures, specially when he’s a little boy, but then there’s the love, which is strange and hard too, a homophobic gay boy, an addict, but there’s still love, and I risk saying it reads as if he was if not the love of his life one of.
Just writing this so long after I’ve finished the book, I feel like crying, it digs deep and latches, it’s moving and emotional, crude and candid, no filters only vivid truth.
It’s really a tale about the consequences of war in second and third generations, about racism, about coming out as gay, about addiction and how it can kill off a generation in poor countries/neighbourhoods, and about love and understanding for a hard mother.
The book reads almost as a poem, lyric and entrancing, as it is harsh and brutal in its words, moving like a wave, advancing and receding, although mostly moving temporarily forward in his life.
I think this is a book that will become a classic of our times since it touches with such candor on so many relevant and 20th century important moments and circumstances, and the lives of those born in the last decades of it in the US of A.

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bearish's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense 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

Crying Through Every Chapter, First Generation Feelings™, Everyone You Love is a Monster, Generational Trauma Strikes Again, BRB Calling My Mom, Emotional Support Grandma

Content Warnings

archaicrobin's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-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

5.0

This is without a doubt one of the most beautiful books I have ever read (or technically listened to). Ocean Vuoung writes beautifully and completely destroyed me at the same time.

Written as a letter to his illiterate mother who fled Vietnam during the war, Little Dog shares his struggles growing up as a gay Vietnamese man in America at a time where tolerance was almost non-existent. You hear about his mother’s story of survival, along with that of his grandmother’s. You hear about the horrific things his family has endured and that he has endured at the hands of his family. So much emotion is in this book, it completely destroyed me.

I highly recommend this novel and if you can, get the audiobook so you can hear Ocean’s narration of it! This is one I’ll be thinking about for awhile….

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ejoyws's review against another edition

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A beautiful book that I’d like to go back to when I’m more emotionally prepared to deal with it.

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cocacolor's review against another edition

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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

4.5

Love Vuong's poetry; his novel is like his poetry, but more so. That's sometimes good and sometimes bad. Gets extra points for making me personally feel seen.

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