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

challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

3.5

 
Often, I found this book to be gorgeous: a tender rumination on what it’s like to be the gay son of a Vietnam war refugee in America.  Conceived as kind of an open letter to the author’s mother, remarkably intimate and personally detailed—I was carried right into the heart of their relationship. For the first 80 or so pages this was enough. I loved dipping into the beautiful though often painful emotion, lovely language all around me but gradually I needed more of a narrative structure. Thankfully at times, the story did touch down on solid narration making me wish more of it was as straightforward. Then, we’d lift off again into poetic language that may or may not seem to apply. Especially in the last 50 pages or so, I would have loved the author to take another swing through the text clearing some clutter. For much of the book, the focus was on the author’s mother and his first love—both very nicely rendered—but the last section focused more on his father/stepfather (I kept getting confused—even his grandfather adds to that confusion partly because of the poetic approach) and just doesn’t seem to jell. And especially in these last pages, the concept of it being a letter to his mother became intangible. I could have read a longer book with a little less poetry or a series of poems but this mash up was often frustrating.