On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

By Ocean Vuong

  • Release Date: 2019-06-04
  • Genre: Literary Fiction
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 806 Ratings

Description

The instant New York Times Bestseller • Nominated for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction

“A lyrical work of self-discovery that’s shockingly intimate and insistently universal…Not so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling


On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

Named a Best Book of the Year by: 
GQ, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Library Journal, TIME, Esquire, The Washington Post, Apple, Good Housekeeping, The New Yorker, The New York Public Library, Elle.com, The Guardian, The A.V. Club, NPR, Lithub, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal Magazine and more! 

Reviews

  • Beautiful. Or Gorgeous, I should say

    5
    By Aaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy
    Was crying within minutes of reading.
  • So poetic and beautiful!

    5
    By a529000000
    It was one of the best books I’ve read ever. I loved the poetic narrative and the way the author made a book that in itself is a poem, a letter to a mom who cannot read. It is so beautiful and emotion filled. As I read I can see myself through the eyes of the little boy experiencing life as part of a family of vietnamese migrants. I loved this book! I might read it again.
  • If I could rate each section separately

    2
    By Paris McDoogal
    I would give the first section a 5. I enjoyed the characterizations and the relationships and scenarios and the voice of the author. As the book went on it got more and more contemplative and cerebral and had less to tell us about anything other than the authors sad perspective, and written in an increasingly labored poetic style that I had a harder and harder time deciphering. Section 3 had the least amount of character development or plot, mostly waxing on pretentiously. So section three gets a 2/5 from me. Section two was a mix of section one and three, in content and quality. Very intelligent author, this book could’ve used some editing. I was disappointed when the book stopped being a story about characters and leaned harder into the incomprehensible poetry, which doubtless meant a lot to the author but made very little sense to me.
  • Tried to like it, but . . .

    1
    By Little momma 1955
    There are some beautifully written lines in this book and some folks will probably love it but it wasn't for me.
  • Beautiful

    5
    By E.lish.a
    Beautifully written story. Sad but yet hopeful.
  • Yes

    5
    By chhvduhcrfchiivti
    Amazing,
  • A miss

    2
    By Tooley426
    Didnt do it for me. I wasn’t invested, and the story was too scattered and unfocused.
  • Indescribably Brilliant

    4
    By Richard Bakare
    Wow, just wow. Ocean Voung unleashed a tidal wave of poeticized story telling and imagery. He shows a mastery of language that both demonstrates its power to bring life to the singularity of the human experience, and at the same time how it is not enough to capture all that we are perfectly. His style with the pregnant pauses between scenes, allows him to fully put all the heaviness of his life on the reader but allow moments to breath. Recollecting yourself, only to plunge down deeper into beauty and tragedy. I heard the would be adapting this novel into a film, I can’t imagine how they will preserve the richness and density of the language that he packed into every sentence.
  • Wonderful

    5
    By ninaboss56
    I have never read a book that made me feel like this one has. I have not lived this life, but I can feel it. Thank you Ocean.
  • Poignant, harrowing, raw.

    5
    By ArtsAndSciences
    Poetry at its most introspective. The human condition ripped open.

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