Reviews

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

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melloyellow0920's review against another edition

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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

4.5

jake_evan_'s review against another edition

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funny inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

I think that was the most beautiful book I’ve ever read. For certain the most poetically beautiful exploration of language and imagery but also just as an observation of life and all of what life is, good and bad, and how it all just folds together into something worth remembering. The title coming from a passage near the end of the novel, I think I thought it was talking about how we are gorgeous, only momentarily, in youth or moments of happiness and in beauty, which i would say it still alludes to. But I think I see it more about how insignificant our live really are, but how immensely beautiful it is anyway. That people suffer and succeed and are beautiful everywhere all at once and all throughout history, but that doesn’t make our life any less full of color and possibility.

mpaz9_'s review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.0

trisjdavila's review against another edition

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emotional slow-paced

2.75

i just can’t get behind something that needs to make the meaning of everything so obvious. great books and great writing have meaning that can stand on its own without the author guiding us there with questions.

is some of the writing beautiful? yeah, sure. but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s not really any movement that pushes us from one point to the next.

vuong clearly thought trevor was the most interesting character based on how he was written. however, this is a book about a mother and son, so when we leave trevor to come back to the mother-son dynamic, i get bored.

the way abuse is written does not feel real and the fragmentary nature of this book makes it fall apart.

this isn’t a novel. it’s a poem, and not a particularly great one.