Reviews

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

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damprice's review against another edition

4.0

Ocean has woven poetry and breathtakingly beautiful prose into a story following Little Dog and his identity as a gay man, a son, and an immigrant. I feel that the first half delves more into the immigrant experience - pissing yourself in front of American soldiers and eventually marrying one, mistaking mayo for butter and feeling like you've had it made - to be eating butter, like kings, every day!

Towards the second half, we explore Little Dog's sexuality. The sex scenes are graphic, visceral, felt, and incredibly real - every emotion and context is given consideration: fucking in a barn for the first time, feeling used yet loved, the musings of a boy in the act wondering if he'd be less of a man to be on the bottom rather than on the top, dominant, as a man should be. As a reader, you will feel these things. It's thrilling, terrifying, clumsy, traumatic, and pleasurable all at once - and these emotions truly leap off of the page at you. My only complaint was that I felt the focus shifted away from Little Dog's experience and more onto the poetry, which made the prose feel a bit purple as I continued to read.

It's a relatively short but emotionally impactful read. If you're in the mood to simply FEEL, and you feel like you could learn something from the experience of a gay immigrant man, I think this is an excellent read.