Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

110 reviews

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

i used to be so pretentious when it came to giving books five stars. i thought they had to check this huge list of boxes, but they dont. if you enjoy a book, give it five stars. with that being said, i dont know if i enjoyed this book. it doesnt feel like a book you’re supposed to like, but you love it anyway. its gut-wrenching and hurtful and powerful and loving. it’s everything in the universe at once. 

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dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I can still hear Vuong's gentle, relentless voice when I read quotes or pages from the hardcopy I finally picked up. Sometimes I read a little to remind the writer part of my brain how lyrical words work, and what kind of writer I want to be.

His author-read audiobook performance of this powerful book was nothing short of magnificent. 

A queer Vietnamese American man writes a letter to his mother, a survivor of the Vietnam War, who cannot read. His love for her, and hers for him, is ferocious and beautiful beyond words. Vuong is a poet, but strangely, I find his novel more compelling than his poetry. Tons of content warnings, to the degree I don't know when I will ever feel mentally resilient enough in my own C-PTSD to re-read it in its entirety, but if you're in the mood for a good cry, I can't think of anything more cathartic.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging 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

This book... God, this book, where do I even begin? It was an emotional and heartfelt rollercoaster, full of beautiful writing and thought-provoking metaphors. The author's poetry background comes to life in this novel, making every sentence packed with some kind of hidden message. This book does take some unexpected turns and strange offchutes in the narrative. While they were extremely important to the overall story and did make sense in the bigger picture, while reading them at the moment, it felt uncomfortable at times. But that shows the beauty of this story, that Ocean Vuong can take the darker sides of a topic (that might not even be related to the characters) and make them somehow significant to the overall story. This is a beautiful story, one I will reread to try to find more hidden meanings in Ocean's beautiful writing style. Easy 4.5/5 stars, -0.5 just because of the uncomfy parts (please read a full list of the trigger warnings before reading this book).

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted 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: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

This was so incredibly beautiful. Other reviewers have said they were left wanting more, which I get, but I love the way this novel was written—scattered, emotional, and poetic. It's like Vuong put into words how you often remember traumatic events in life, when it's hard to bring to memory the full picture, but little details stand out. My phone contains so many pictures of lines from this book that resonated with me (since I checked it out from the library and couldn't write in it). 

CW for drugs and overdose deaths, which I wish I would have known going in, but reading it was actually very healing for me. 

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challenging emotional slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This book is so beautifully written, and as a queer person raised in a Viet immigrant family, it was a very emotional read. I would love to read it again and again. I hosted a book club through my campus library on this book, and it was difficult to narrow down discussion questions: A high number of lines are filled with meaning, and the book is told in unconventional manners. We could have made the meeting so much longer and would have loved every second of it. 

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Loveable characters: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional reflective sad 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

All this time I told myself we were born from war—but I was wrong, Ma. We were born from beauty.
Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence—but that violence, having passed throught the fruit, failed to spoil it.

I don't think I have the words right now to explain how much I loved this book. But I just want to thank my bestie for recommending me this to me. :)

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