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

Definitely the most beautiful prose I’ve ever witnessed in my life, I underlined so many incredible sentences. At one point he describes his language like a shipwreck very fragmented with pieces coming to the shore out of order and that’s a good description of how the plot unfolds. Occasionally hard to follow but not impossible and amazing portrayal of flawed but endearing characters. So sad and emotional with tiny sparks of hope. There was a scene of animal cruelty early on in the book which really turned me off for a while but the whole book is impressively unflinching. Will definitely be reading all Ocean’s future books. It’s just gorgeous, excuse the pun!

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yolie's review against another edition

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challenging dark 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? Yes

4.25

This book needs you to take your time. Although the novel appears slim it is quite dense in terms of the content and Vuong’s prose. Some chapters read more like short stories and long form poetry than a linear account. The book has moments of absolute hopelessness, you’re shattered by Little Dog’s accounts of growing up an Asian immigrant in America, gay and poor. His one-sided and ill-fated relationship with Trevor makes me cautious (and sad) to say he is Little Dog's 'first love'. So much of their relationship is marred by Trevor's homophobia and recklessness.

I wish less time was spent on that relationship and more weight was given to the other significant relationships in his life and the milestones he achieves in his adulthood.

But there’s beauty in it too - a nod to the book’s title. Vuong/ Little Dog is able to hold so much compassion for people, he chooses to see them in their gorgeousness - irrespective of the brevity of that moment. Long after the novel is over you’ll keep coming back to certain phrases, marvelling at how stunning and lyrical Vuong’s writing is.

One of my favourite passages from the book reads:
“Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”

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radfordmanor's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

3.75

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amcghig's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Heartbreaking but so beautifully written. There is triumph in naming, acknowledging, and releasing your (or generational) trauma and Ocean Vuong has done just that in this beautiful work of art.

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libbymoony's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.75

The first 2 parts were just beautiful and I was sure it’s going to be a 5 star read. But part 3 got too metaphorical and in some places random, I had no idea what was happening. Also there were some VERY disturbing scenes that haunted me for days. Overall the writing is obviously gorgeous and the book gives you a lot to think about, but it’s heavy and sad and graphic.
I don’t know how to rate it to be honest, I loved it as much as I wanted to unread some parts. I guess the first two parts were 5 stars, the third one was 3. So.. I rate this 4, but I have no idea if that’s what I really think.
Updt: it’s been 2 weeks and I’ve been thinking about this book every day.. so I definitely loved it way more than I thought I did

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nothingforpomegranted's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring 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

3.5

A young man's letter to his illiterate mother: How does it feel to be a writer? But also: What is a second generation immigrant and how does he process inherited trauma? How does one define and distinguish among love and lust and desire and grief? Where does the self end and the community begin?

Ocean Vuong is undeniably a poet, and I underlined more passages in this book than I have in a long time, appreciating his lyrical language and the way he carried metaphors across chapters. Perhaps my favorite quotation of the entire novel is this paragraph from the last page, pulling together all of the animal metaphors Vuong used throughout the novel in one concise sequence:

I think of the buffaloes somewhere, maybe in North Dakota or Montana,
their shoulders rippling in slow motion as they race for the cliff, their
brown bodies bottlenecked at the narrow precipice. Their eyes oil-black,
the velvet bones of their horns covered with dust, they run, headfirst,
together--until they become moose, huge and antlered, wet nostrils
braying, then dogs, with paws clawing toward the edge, their tongues
lapping in the light until, finally, they become macaques, a whole troop
of them. The crowns of their heads cut open, their brains hollowed out,
they float, the hair on their limbs fine and soft as feathers. And just as
the first one steps off the cliff, onto ait, the forever nothing below, they
ignite into the ochre-red sparks of monarchs. Thousands of monarchs
pour over the edge, fan into the white air, like a bloodjet hitting water.

However, too often, the language veered too far away from the plot, beautiful for beauty's sake without any meaningful contribution to the story.

As for the story, Vuong addresses a lot. Though not quite chronological, the story begins with his mother's immigration to the United States from Vietnam with her mother and the baby, fleeing at the end of the war, connected to what they left behind but also to Little Dog's white soldier grandfather and to Tiger Woods. The boy grows up in a nail salon, then rides his bike to the tobacco fields, where he finds a job and self-discovery, exploring consciousness (through drugs) and identity (through sex). This, too, was where Vuong started to lose me; though the whole premise is that the mother cannot read the letter, and certainly not in English, I was mortified to read such graphic scenes in this context, and it seemed like Vuong started writing an entirely separate book, trapped in the middle of the family story.

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