Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

26 reviews

writingcaia's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Car accident, Excrement, Homophobia, and War

flamesocks's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Abortion, Addiction, Alcoholism, Xenophobia, Blood, Cancer, Car accident, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gun violence, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, and Violence

erikalv97's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book is beautifully written, the story is enthralling, I could hardly put the book down. 

I loved the writer’s style, the constant change of tenses, narration and the really thorough descriptions. 

The story itself is hard hitting, I cried several times (please check the cw!!!!)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Cancer, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Drug abuse, Drug use, War, Abortion, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Death, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Mental illness, Racism, Physical abuse, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Excrement

clemrain's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

I was not expecting sex scenes let alone the ones as graphic as the ones in the book. Beautiful writing that sometimes goes too long. But makes me excited to read the author’s poetry. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Addiction, Death, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: Racial slurs, Homophobia, War, Terminal illness, Abortion, Death of parent, Bullying, Child abuse, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Domestic abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

The sex scenes are not in there for fun. Nothing romantic about it. I skimmed or skipped over them because they were just hard to read.

the sex scenes portray internalized homophobia and really are on thin ice about consent.

internationalreads's review against another edition

challenging dark fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Cancer, Car accident, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Homophobia, Mental illness, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, War, Xenophobia, and Racism

sadiefc's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, War, and Sexual content

Moderate: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Xenophobia, Vomit, and Transphobia