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kshertz's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Addiction, Cancer, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, and War
honorablemmmention's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Vuong's book is much more of a meditative collection of poems than a story with a middle beginning or end, openly breaking the confines or genre. It goes nowhere, simply because it does not want to. Go into it expecting to read a letter, not an adventure, as it doesn't end with a conclusion, as much as a full stop.
No one wanted to like this book more than I, and I can't say I didn't, but be warned that there is so much animal cruelty, and in pretty graphic detail. Like it's a full-on motif.
I have never had so much fun underlining and annotating, but that's mainly where the fun begins and ends. The amount of breathtaking absolutely gorgeous lines in this is endless, and I weep at both the beauty, and for those who do not care for literature. Because they are missing out.
(It's been a few months now, and what I've noticed is how much I miss reading it. I miss the characters, the style, the story. The sum is definetly better than its parts.)
Graphic: Addiction and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Homophobia, Racism, Violence, Dementia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and War
Minor: Car accident
jessedithgc's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Addiction, Cancer, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Excrement, Grief, Car accident, Outing, Alcohol, Colonisation, and War
persipha_books's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Abortion
Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Excrement
Minor: Gun violence, Homophobia, Car accident, Outing, and War
__manu___'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Death, Racism, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Grief, and Abortion
Minor: Cancer, Sexual content, Car accident, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and War
adelaidecooper's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Addiction, Cancer, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Car accident, and Classism
elisamurillo's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Racism, Terminal illness, Violence, Car accident, and War
yolie's review against another edition
- 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
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.”
Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Grief, Cannibalism, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Violence, Vomit, Car accident, Abortion, and Abandonment
Minor: Biphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, and Classism
writingcaia's review against another edition
- 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
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.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Homophobia, Excrement, Car accident, and War
mirireads's review against another edition
- 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
3.75
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Grief, and War
Minor: Animal cruelty, Cancer, Gun violence, Blood, Excrement, Car accident, Abortion, and Pregnancy