On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

A Novel

by Ocean Vuong

256 pages

English language

Published Oct. 29, 2020 by Penguin Random House.

ISBN:: 9781529110685

(30 reviews)

Brilliant, heartbreaking and highly original, Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling.

This 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. It tells of Vietnam, of the lasting impact of war, and of his family's struggle to forge a new future. And it serves as a doorway into parts of Little Dog's life his mother has never known - episodes of bewilderment, fear and passion - all the while moving closer to an unforgettable revelation.

7 editions

GG reviewed On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Review of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

An astonishing beautiful novel written by a poet, which takes the form of a fictional memoir, covering the main character’s gay coming-of-age story braided in with his mother’s and grandmother’s lives in Vietnam before and during the war, which is ultimately about what it means to be alive. It won’t be for everyone, but I loved it. One of the best books I’ve read in the past 5 years.

Sandra reviewed On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Review of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

For a book that is so intimate in detail it felt very superficial to me. I never connected with the characters or their pain. They just did not feel real to me. I could not relate.

It was okay. It was mostly a miss for me. Some people might be able to enjoy and appreciate this type of writing. Me, not so much.

pithypants reviewed On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Review of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

2.5 Stars.

The writing is beautiful – you can tell that Ocean Vuong is a poet in how he crafts his sentences. And the story is layered with a lot of important themes: the Vietnam War, immigration, the opioid crisis, drug addition, homosexuality... it's a LOT. And apparently the novel is (not so?) loosely based on Ocean's life story.

So why then, if there's so much substance and beauty, am I only giving it two stars? Because it was hard to follow. It bounced around and retold the same story in different ways, and at times I found myself confused about who he was talking to or writing about. This strikes me as the type of novel people claim to love because they are either a) poets or MFA holders who have a really deep appreciation for language and writing, or b) pretentious and want to seem smart.

Owen Blacker reviewed On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Review of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

A friend of mine reviewed this recently and explained it far better than I could: Book Review: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. I added a comment there:

I felt very much the same for quite a lot of the parts I have so far read. Bits of it I really liked, because they spoke to me speciﬁcally — Little Dog’s ﬁrst queer experiences, for example — but a lot of it felt really uncomfortably misery-porn without me feeling I was learning a huge amount from it (except a bit more context of wartime Vietnam, maybe). And it was also pretty strange reading something that felt like it was autobiographical but also a roman à clef, y’know?

Interesting and bits of it are great — and [a:Ocean Vuong|4456871|Ocean Vuong|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1561472666p2/4456871.jpg] is clearly an exceptional writer — but I DNF’d about halfway through.

A friend of mine reviewed this recently and explained it far better than I could: Book Review: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. I added a comment there:

I felt very much the same for quite a lot of the parts I have so far read. Bits of it I really liked, because they spoke to me speciﬁcally — Little Dog’s ﬁrst queer experiences, for example — but a lot of it felt really uncomfortably misery-porn without me feeling I was learning a huge amount from it (except a bit more context of wartime Vietnam, maybe). And it was also pretty strange reading something that felt like it was autobiographical but also a roman à clef, y’know?

Interesting and bits of it are great — and [a:Ocean Vuong|4456871|Ocean Vuong|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1561472666p2/4456871.jpg] is clearly an exceptional writer — but I DNF’d about halfway through.

nikmahie reviewed On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Review of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" on 'Goodreads'

1 star

Ik heb dit boek niet kunnen uitlezen. De poëtische schrijfstijl is gewoon echt mijn ding niet. De pagina’s vol beeldspraak en weinig verhaal... Jammer, maar helaas.

billy reviewed On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Review of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

a lot of frosting and not much cake. good if you like that kind of thing I'm sure

sidra reviewed On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Review of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

ohh boy

Kathleen reviewed On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Review of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

The whole novel is full of descriptive, immersive language that borders on poetry without being poetry. So beautiful.

Adrián Astur Álvarez reviewed On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Review of "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

There are some poignant passages and metaphors that generate nice turns of phrase, but without a clear narrative structure I was left with very little to hang onto. To call this novel pretentious is an error but there is something problematic about the cloudy conceit and the philosophical descriptions which felt like recitations of a grad school reading list. It kept me at a distance and never let me get fully into the work. It was all feelings over actions, telling over showing, and side commentary using other theorists' ideas.

The title is beautiful and there are a few eruptions of prose that land (I am fond of chapter 9) but I'm not going to remember this book in a month.