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

3.0

"How I tried to tell you but did not have the language you would understand. Do you understand? I was a gaping wound in the middle of America and you were inside me asking, Where are we, where are we baby?

Beautiful writing that demands to be read slowly. Vuong writes so carefully that each moment becomes charged and meaningful, something that creates a life and is bound to everything that came before it. The past here is ever-present, an unwritten unseen cycle. Through the voice of Little Dog, Vuong is probing in his exploration of trauma, war, race, sexuality, immigration, and language.

At times it felt like the author was so steeped in the beauty of the writing, the form of language, that it took away from the intimacy. Some fragments felt impenetrable. Maybe this was meant to mirror the gap in language between mother and son? The failings of the English language in conveying the life lived in between them? Either way, I was left wanting more moments of clarity. Some moments, too, felt strained, the musings fake-deep in a way that made me embarrassed for their inclusion in the pages. They felt out of place in a book that feels so deliberate.