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A review by booksonadventures
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
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
3.5
I'd like to summarize this book with a sentiment shared during our book club discussion, that OEWBG is beautiful, powerful, and widely recommended, and yet it’s hard to say that this book was enjoyed. It's painful. Categorizing this book as fiction does nothing to loosen the knot in my stomach that Vuong conjured with his words. I don't have to ask if these stories are real, because I know that whether or not this book is autobiographical, these stories are REAL to someone, somewhere.
I struggled with OEWBG in the beginning, I tend to be a fast reader and the lyrical sentences felt awkward and jumbled in my mind. I decided not to force it and ended up at the book club unfinished, where someone recommended I try the audiobook and WOW, WHAT A DIFFERENCE. If you also struggle to read slowly, I cannot recommend the audio enough. Vuong narrates his own work, with a cadence that mirrors spoken word poetry. It's exquisite.
What really stood out to me with OEWBG is the way that Vuong plays with language through definition, homonyms, and metaphor. The result is a unique performance, where you can feel the narrator searching, yearning for connection—with his mother, his lover, his Vietnamese roots, and his home in America. An example: "What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once."
Still, I never really connected with this one as much as I was hoping but I appreciate the artistic and creative narrative structure.
Final thoughts: 👍🏻 Recommended.
I struggled with OEWBG in the beginning, I tend to be a fast reader and the lyrical sentences felt awkward and jumbled in my mind. I decided not to force it and ended up at the book club unfinished, where someone recommended I try the audiobook and WOW, WHAT A DIFFERENCE. If you also struggle to read slowly, I cannot recommend the audio enough. Vuong narrates his own work, with a cadence that mirrors spoken word poetry. It's exquisite.
What really stood out to me with OEWBG is the way that Vuong plays with language through definition, homonyms, and metaphor. The result is a unique performance, where you can feel the narrator searching, yearning for connection—with his mother, his lover, his Vietnamese roots, and his home in America. An example: "What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once."
Still, I never really connected with this one as much as I was hoping but I appreciate the artistic and creative narrative structure.
Final thoughts: 👍🏻 Recommended.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racism, Sexual content, and Grief