A review by readingthebacklist
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is simultaneously raw and tender, tentative and aggressive that it dispossessed me of my emotional defense cloak and confronted my own convoluted feelings about my mother. The knotted ball of resentment, guilt and admiration…I’m still processing the scope of this beautiful, fragmentary novel that impossibly, feels like so much of it was written just for me. 
 
Voung touches on a breadth of issues (war, masculinity, queerness, trauma, the opioid epidemic), but near and dear to my lived experience are immigration, language, family relationships, and social class – all written unflinchingly, but also with grace and warmth. I LOVE THIS BOOK
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