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A review by savvylit
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
This novel is an incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking exploration of parental love, intergenerational trauma, burgeoning queer love, and the opioid crisis. The narrator, Little Dog, paints a deeply nuanced portrait of his life through the lens of his complicated mother-son relationship. By continuously recognizing his mother's own traumatic past, he's able to better comprehend her tendencies towards coldness and cruelty. Despite their difficulties, the love between Little Dog and his mother is obvious. At its heart, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a marvelous reminder that familial love is a complex spectrum.
More than the unforgettable content of the novel (I won't spoil it!), perhaps the best thing about this book is Ocean Vuong's overwhelming talent. Vuong's background as a poet is evident in each of his perfectly crafted, haunting sentences. Some of them were too wonderful not to share. See for yourself:
"I believe the wound is also the place where the skin reencounters itself, asking of each end, where have you been?"
"In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly."
"You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty."
"Too much joy, I swear, is lost in our desperation to keep it."
"They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it."
"Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence - but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it."
"Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey."
More than the unforgettable content of the novel (I won't spoil it!), perhaps the best thing about this book is Ocean Vuong's overwhelming talent. Vuong's background as a poet is evident in each of his perfectly crafted, haunting sentences. Some of them were too wonderful not to share. See for yourself:
"I believe the wound is also the place where the skin reencounters itself, asking of each end, where have you been?"
"In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly."
"You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty."
"Too much joy, I swear, is lost in our desperation to keep it."
"They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it."
"Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence - but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it."
"Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, and War