On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel Paperback – 4 Oct. 2024

Of all the adjectives that come to mind when thinking of this book, tender is the one that lingers. Written as a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is at once emotional, raw, saturated, lyrical, crushing, sanguine, and romantic.As Little Dog, Vuong tends to a verdant emotional garden filled with trauma and love in equal measure. It is the story of an outsider who begins to find himself and his place in the world through the history of his Vietnamese mother and grandmother and the memories of Trevor, his 'all-American' first love.This book is powerful in all the right places and although it can tend toward the unstructured whimsy of poetry at time, it finds its way back to solid footing time after time. Descriptions of time spent with his loved ones are expressed with such detail and precision as to place you in the room with all of your senses on high alert. There are passages so incredibly diaphanous in prose yet profuse in imagery that my breath would catch.Stunning and beautiful. And so very tender.

Description:A (long-form) letter from a Vietnamese American boy to his mother. Explores family, sexuality and themes of belonging/otherness.Liked:Mostly beautifully written, with some very vivid descriptions of place. The protagonist and his family and friends felt fully human, very well-realised.Disliked:There's a fair bit of it that feels fancy for the sake of being fancy. There's some genuine profundity, for sure, but also some stretched metaphors and pontificating which I wasn't super fond of.Would recommend.

This reads like an exploration of cruelty and suffering, with an interest in sado-masochism. As a reader I felt manipulated into a submissive/victim position, lulled by gorgeous prose into receptive mode, then bombarded with prolonged descriptions of cruelty and violence. I did not appreciate it, though others might enjoy it. I do think this is a hugely talented writer and would read his next book, although I hope he might mature into a more empathetic writer. At the moment I found him erring on solipsistic.

A beautiful prose poem, a journey through lives and longing. The ease of going between memory and present, words linking thoughts. A worthy read, just to discover not only the tragic stories but also what is possible with language.

This book, to me, is very much like a master work of modern art. It is immensely lyrical, dripping in vivid imagery and intense emotion. Also much like a work of art, you know that as you stare at it, there is so much more going on then what you can physically see and you might be able to grasp it if only you had a little more of ... something.This book is profoundly meaningful from cover to cover, to the point that it can be frustrating knowing that you are not really reaching the full scope of what the author is trying to describe. In some fairness, the author themselves are seemingly equally frustrated trying to understand their place in the world, and perhaps just sharing their frustration is enough for this book. Somewhere in the book I stopped actively trying to know what was going on in any deeper sense of the word and just let them imagery wash over me, keeping whatever experience seemed to stick.That’s how I recommend reading this book: take what you can, but think of it more as a meditation rather than a message.

What a fantastic book! I loved every word of it ❤️

I found this so dull. It is about one person retelling some harrowing experiences and explaining his feelings. So there is little plot — and plot is crucial to most novels as it makes them interesting and intriguing. Plot explains relationships and interactions more than the interior thought of just one soul. This story tells the troubled early life of a boy of mixed Vietnam and US descent. He is victimised and abused. It has the feel, to me, of a young author being encouraged in creative writing classes to write about his feelings — but he has not been encouraged to write about more than his narrator's experience. So the book is actually very narrow. I am puzzled that so many people like the book. It has been given 5 stars by other 5,000 reviewers on Amazon (as I write this review).

Such an emotional read. Ocean is a true poet and his writing is truly exceptional

Llegó en buen estado antes de lo esperado. Está muy bien escrito, se lee rápido y vale completamente la pena atravesar por la historia sólo por la analogía que hace el autor sobre la belleza en la tragedia

Follow @bookrecsbyrushi on instagram to know more about books.I love how beautiful the cover is, pretty leaves and matte finish. Poetic writing style.

Words can’t explain how much I love this book. So Deep and so much potential for growth.

Style does not sit with me, but then again I am not a native english speaker.

An extremely powerful narrative of a Vietnamese boy and his relationship with his mother and grandmother living as expatriates in the USA. Also it portrays a coming of age story set in a rural part of America seen with different lenses and the discovery for his first love for a bitterly sad teenage boy.Writing a letter to his illiterate mother, the narrator reveals all the suffering and complexities that their lives carried away and their struggle for mutual understanding living in a new country.This a debut autobiographical novel by the highly-awarded poet Ocean Vuong who gives us a heartbreaking punch of his experience for being a foreigner in America. The narrative is full of poetry in its poignant fabric of his personal life and reminded me of a great Portuguese writer as well: Valter Hugo Mãe.It was a great pleasure to read such a captivating and intense novel.