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

In Sum: Beautiful writing, some significant style issues I can’t get over, and a slew of trigger warnings at the bottom of this review.

The writing is absolutely beautiful and poetic. Striking language is used and really deep themes are explored. Among the themes explored are: race, being gay, drug use and abuse, mental health, death, love. The perspective is equally interesting and nuanced.

However, I had significant issues with the overall writing style. The “pop culture” references were a lot of the time out of nowhere and fell flat for me. I call them “pop culture” in quotations because they are really more references to people and things we all know of in some way, like Tiger Woods. But there are also references and commonly known research into the despicable practices of pharmaceutical companies in marketing and pushing opioids. These factual tidbits fell flat. They seemed out of place even though they were concerned with the story being told.

The book is written as a letter from son to mother. I just don’t see telling my mother stories she told me and events she and I lived through in an extended letter. Nor do I really see ever telling my mother about my first boyfriend or the first time I had sex with a guy or since then. But the author does do that, though he admits his mother will likely never read this.

Parts one and two were good and kept my interest - though the more experimental and poetic stanza-type sections in part two felt gimmicky and didn’t fit or work for me. Part three is where I lost interest and grew impatient with the style and the story. It felt as though the story stalled.

My biggest issue, which is incorporated in the above issues, is that the story being told had no real plot, no real character study with how disjointed and erratic the pacing and topics could be, and felt empty. For example, his mother and grandmother both have (it seems completely untreated) PTSD that pops up several times in parts one and two, then disappears (more or less) as if they never had those issues and visions.

I’m glad I read it for its beautiful language at parts and it’s perspective, but I didn’t like the style and flow. It just wasn’t for me, despite a lot of the contents being interesting.

TW: Death, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Underage Sex, Abuse, Racism, Graphic Animal Death/Abuse

Content Warnings

dominicangirl's review

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

lilkstew's review against another edition

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emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

Wow, this might be the most beautiful book I have ever read. The blend of poetry and prose was masterful; nearly every page had a sentence that made me stop in my tracks. The whole book felt like I was watching the author toss pebbles into a pond one by one and counting the ripples on the surface. It was so meditative and emotional and intimate and heartfelt and bittersweet; my eyes stung for a good portion of this novel. I can't believe that Vuong was able to write about love, family, war, addiction, violence, identity, and loss with such great nuance in under 300 pages. This was fantastic. I imagine that I'll keep thinking about this book for a long time to come.

Content Warnings

gabrielab's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad 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? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

sara_n's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

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