Scan barcode
catandherbooks's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.25
Was worried I would like this book as much as everyone seems to but it was a lot better than I thought. Gorgeous writing and a cast of characters you can't help but to root for even when they aren't great people.
A beautiful, tender take on a mother-son relationship and on how the things we don't tell shape us in so many ways.
And the title?? I think it makes sense once you've read the book.
A beautiful, tender take on a mother-son relationship and on how the things we don't tell shape us in so many ways.
And the title?? I think it makes sense once you've read the book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War
Moderate: Cancer, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Terminal illness
Minor: Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Blood, and Abortion
branson03's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
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? No
5.0
A lovely and eloquent read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Dementia, Grief, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and War
megold12's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
3.5
I appreciate the lyricism of the writing and how Vuong contrasts it with visceral imagery of war, drugs, and sex - but it got too much for me at times. Just not what I like to read, but very good writing. I wish it was shorter - the beginning was very impactful and I wanted to recommend it to everyone but by the point I had about 3 hours left of the audiobook I was ready to be done.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Sexual content, Xenophobia, and War
ameliasbooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
More thoughts to come.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Abandonment, War, and Deportation
Moderate: Gun violence and Car accident
modryzamek's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-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? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Violence, Grief, Car accident, Abortion, Alcohol, and War
jefferz's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
slow-paced
- 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
1.5
I knew full well going into it that Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous was not going to play to my preferred tastes and interests at all, but I still wanted to give it a try anyway to expand my reading experiences. Unfortunately my initial impression was right. Despite how much I wanted to like the novel for its earnest, ambitious aspirations and to connect with the powerful content and memories, this was a complete stylistic miss for me. On Earth there were briefly moments that were impactful where I thought I would experience what so many others have loved in Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, but the presentation constantly disappointed me and ruined each moving moment rather than enhancing it.
Ordinarily I would and should’ve DNF’d this, but I stuck it out with hopes that it would get better since I was recommended this from a friend; it did slightly to an extent. Divided into three parts loosely based around Little Dog’s childhood, adolescence, and young adult/reflective years, I found the 3rd part to be the most impactful and moving. Focusing on themes of death, mortality, addiction, and familial caregiving, these themes were ones that I could understand and connect with the most compared to themes or feelings that were presented in the first two parts. The loss of a particular person that is redacted for spoilers was easily the most interesting part for me, one because of the context and impact this person had on Little Dog, but also because there were less excessive metaphors and poetic messing around.
At first I thought the metaphors layered with social and societal commentary were interesting and affected. However the initial interest faded along with my patience for how little narrative content there was, filled and covered by so much abstract poetry. What started off as insightful connections quickly began to feel like constant reaching, with random phrases or off-hand tangents at every turn. The attempts at poetic connections and lyrical phrasing felt oddly impersonal and fragmented, which is at odds with the otherwise personal content. Sometimes less is more, I would’ve loved a more contained presentation that would allow the inspiring content and powerful narration to speak for itself. And to be clear, it’s not that I didn’t understand what the book was trying to do, far from that. I can tell a lot of love and effort was put in but ultimately the finished product felt like a mess and didn’t really give me a reason to care.
Despite being Asian American myself, I sometimes have a hard time reading or appreciating written portrayals or reflections on said Asian American experiences. This one however, appealed to me even less than others due to how convoluted the recollected “memories” were written. There were occasional moments that I thought were brilliant written, for example the following:
<blockquote>I am thinking of freedom again, how the calf is most free when the cage opens and it’s led to the truck for slaughter (calves raised for veal). All freedom is relative–you know too well-and sometimes it’s not freedom at all, nut simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they “free” wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders. But I took it anyway, that widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough.”</blockquote>
Unfortunately for every quote or metaphor I thought was well done, there were another dozen metaphors or references that I felt had little relevancy or connection. I’ve read a few reviews that condemn Vuong’s writing for being pretentious, but that wasn’t the impression I got. Rather, I found the writing to be too free-flowing and ridiculously abstract. The memoir elements feel like a constant stream of thoughts, with no filter or editing. There were many times where I would start to get invested, only for the writing to go off on a metaphorical tangent (sometimes appropriately but more often randomly) and eventually loop back at the end after disrupting the flow. Other times Vuong would try to connect two different memories or concepts and ping pong back and forth with little finesse. Perhaps I’m too analytical and logical to follow or appreciate the artistic liberties at play, but I spent so much time re-reading stanzas, sitting there baffled at whatever the book was attempting, eventually getting it, then progressively losing my patience at how excessively unnecessary the prose was. The book also has a tendency to present events out of chronological order and ordinarily this is not a problem. However these events are connected to each other loosely by feeling(?) or theme, but the concept is so unfocused that the narration and moment feel lost and all over the place. I hoped that by the end of the book, the separate pieces and themes would be drawn together or somehow connect to the title, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Sadly the book didn’t do that, and the title concept is only really referenced in the closing two chapters with callbacks to part 1’s contents, yet few to part 2 or 3’s. And that’s disappointing since a lot of the individual content across all three parts seemed like excellent material to work with and something I would’ve appreciated if handled differently.
At the end of the day, I don’t regret picking this up to read as it’s a unique novel. However, I can’t say that I enjoyed reading it, both subjectively and objectively. I think that for those who are more empathetic or free-flowing thinkers, this writing style and collection of memoir moments are powerful and moving. But it just didn’t work at all for me. In many ways, the book is written like a memoir despite having loosely-inspired (yet also fictional? I don’t understand where the line is drawn) novel-esque elements. But combined as a memoir and a fictional story, it somehow fails to really pull off either concept with problems associated with his signature prose. I originally rated this one star while writing this review, but ultimately barely bumped it up to a two (honestly it's like a 1.5) due to being briefly gorgeous at times and its high aspirations (also it’s an insult to compare this to some of the other 1-star books I’ve previously reviewed). But make no mistake, this was a terrible choice for my reading preference and I’m happy to now move on to something else.
Ordinarily I would and should’ve DNF’d this, but I stuck it out with hopes that it would get better since I was recommended this from a friend; it did slightly to an extent. Divided into three parts loosely based around Little Dog’s childhood, adolescence, and young adult/reflective years, I found the 3rd part to be the most impactful and moving. Focusing on themes of death, mortality, addiction, and familial caregiving, these themes were ones that I could understand and connect with the most compared to themes or feelings that were presented in the first two parts. The loss of a particular person that is redacted for spoilers was easily the most interesting part for me, one because of the context and impact this person had on Little Dog, but also because there were less excessive metaphors and poetic messing around.
At first I thought the metaphors layered with social and societal commentary were interesting and affected. However the initial interest faded along with my patience for how little narrative content there was, filled and covered by so much abstract poetry. What started off as insightful connections quickly began to feel like constant reaching, with random phrases or off-hand tangents at every turn. The attempts at poetic connections and lyrical phrasing felt oddly impersonal and fragmented, which is at odds with the otherwise personal content. Sometimes less is more, I would’ve loved a more contained presentation that would allow the inspiring content and powerful narration to speak for itself. And to be clear, it’s not that I didn’t understand what the book was trying to do, far from that. I can tell a lot of love and effort was put in but ultimately the finished product felt like a mess and didn’t really give me a reason to care.
Despite being Asian American myself, I sometimes have a hard time reading or appreciating written portrayals or reflections on said Asian American experiences. This one however, appealed to me even less than others due to how convoluted the recollected “memories” were written. There were occasional moments that I thought were brilliant written, for example the following:
<blockquote>I am thinking of freedom again, how the calf is most free when the cage opens and it’s led to the truck for slaughter (calves raised for veal). All freedom is relative–you know too well-and sometimes it’s not freedom at all, nut simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they “free” wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders. But I took it anyway, that widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough.”</blockquote>
Unfortunately for every quote or metaphor I thought was well done, there were another dozen metaphors or references that I felt had little relevancy or connection. I’ve read a few reviews that condemn Vuong’s writing for being pretentious, but that wasn’t the impression I got. Rather, I found the writing to be too free-flowing and ridiculously abstract. The memoir elements feel like a constant stream of thoughts, with no filter or editing. There were many times where I would start to get invested, only for the writing to go off on a metaphorical tangent (sometimes appropriately but more often randomly) and eventually loop back at the end after disrupting the flow. Other times Vuong would try to connect two different memories or concepts and ping pong back and forth with little finesse. Perhaps I’m too analytical and logical to follow or appreciate the artistic liberties at play, but I spent so much time re-reading stanzas, sitting there baffled at whatever the book was attempting, eventually getting it, then progressively losing my patience at how excessively unnecessary the prose was. The book also has a tendency to present events out of chronological order and ordinarily this is not a problem. However these events are connected to each other loosely by feeling(?) or theme, but the concept is so unfocused that the narration and moment feel lost and all over the place. I hoped that by the end of the book, the separate pieces and themes would be drawn together or somehow connect to the title, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Sadly the book didn’t do that, and the title concept is only really referenced in the closing two chapters with callbacks to part 1’s contents, yet few to part 2 or 3’s. And that’s disappointing since a lot of the individual content across all three parts seemed like excellent material to work with and something I would’ve appreciated if handled differently.
At the end of the day, I don’t regret picking this up to read as it’s a unique novel. However, I can’t say that I enjoyed reading it, both subjectively and objectively. I think that for those who are more empathetic or free-flowing thinkers, this writing style and collection of memoir moments are powerful and moving. But it just didn’t work at all for me. In many ways, the book is written like a memoir despite having loosely-inspired (yet also fictional? I don’t understand where the line is drawn) novel-esque elements. But combined as a memoir and a fictional story, it somehow fails to really pull off either concept with problems associated with his signature prose. I originally rated this one star while writing this review, but ultimately barely bumped it up to a two (honestly it's like a 1.5) due to being briefly gorgeous at times and its high aspirations (also it’s an insult to compare this to some of the other 1-star books I’ve previously reviewed). But make no mistake, this was a terrible choice for my reading preference and I’m happy to now move on to something else.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Homophobia, and Sexual content
Minor: Death and Racial slurs
boywonder's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, and Suicide
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Racism, and Violence
iced_mochas's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
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
3.0
One of the most poetic titles and author names I ever did see. Ocean Vuong is clearly a talented writer with depth. The way in which he evokes moments from the Vietnam War and connects them to the lived realities of the survivors was brilliant. His profound analogies on migration (the monarch butterfly!) left me stunned. The whole novel is written to his mother and his tone is pleading, steeped in tenderness and vulnerability. Along with his sweet grandma Lan, the three of them form an unbreakable trio. What let this book down (for my taste anyway) was the sense of ‘trauma porn’ throughout. His relationships with his mother, father and first love came across unnecessarily graphic, violent and crude at times. Some may deem this kind of narration to be raw and authentic, but for me it felt like a Hollywood-style vulgarity written for the white gaze. Sometimes less is more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Death, and Grief
angelo_vossen's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
„I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink of an eye, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly.“
"On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong is a stunning debut novel that blends poetic language with a raw and intimate narrative. The novel is framed as a letter from the protagonist, Little Dog, to his illiterate mother, capturing the complexities of their relationship and the broader tapestry of their lives as Vietnamese immigrants in America.
Vuong's prose is lyrical and evocative, drawing on his background as a poet to create vivid imagery and deep emotional resonance. The novel delves into themes of identity, trauma, and the search for belonging, exploring how personal and collective histories shape the characters' lives. The narrative oscillates between past and present, weaving Little Dog's coming-of-age story with reflections on his family's experiences during the Vietnam War.
One of the novel's strengths is its exploration of intergenerational trauma and the immigrant experience, shedding light on the challenges faced by those straddling two cultures. Little Dog's struggles with his sexuality, his bond with his mother, and the haunting memories of his family's past are portrayed with unflinching honesty. Vuong also delves into topics like homophobia as for example portrayed in the following quote and the effects of society‘s expectations and pressure:
„The large boy took out a key chain and started scraping the paint off my bike. It came off so easily, in rosy sparks. I sat there, watching the concrete fleck with bits of pink as he gashed the key against the bike's bones. I wanted to cry but did not yet know how to in English. So I did nothing.
That was the day I learned how dangerous a color can be. That a boy could be knocked off that shade and made to reckon his trespass. Even if color is nothing but what the light reveals, that ‚nothing’ has laws, and a boy on a pink bike must learn, above all else, the law of gravity.“
While the novel's non-linear structure and dense prose may be challenging for some readers (including myself), Vuong's ability to convey profound truths through his writing makes it a deeply rewarding read. "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" is a poignant and powerful meditation on love, loss, and the beauty and pain of life. It is a book that lingers in the mind long after the last page is turned.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, and Abortion
Moderate: Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Blood, Grief, Car accident, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Cancer and Outing
errie's review against another edition
dark
emotional
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Violence, Abortion, Alcohol, and War