Reviews and Comments

I've finally read Ocean Vuong's debut novel, "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous", after 3 years of constant contemplation. I initially had a digital version of the book that I downloaded from a website that I won't name for various reasons. I read the first few pages but then stopped for some reason. I'm not exactly sure why, but it could be because my English wasn't as fluent as it is today, or because I was just feeling lazy about reading in general. This year, I've promised myself to make 2023 my year of reading or perhaps my year of literature. So, I decided to buy the physical copy of this book. This was partly because I saw someone post about it on Instagram and their review made me want to read it again, and partly because I listened to an interview of Andrew Garfield with preen.ph. He talked about his admiration for Vuong after hearing Krista Tippett's interview of him in a podcast titled "On Being." Garfield even promised himself that he would one day marry Vuong, not realizing that he is a man. Ocean Vuong's writing is truly gorgeous. This is not surprising, considering that in 2018, he won the T.S. Eliot Prize for his collection of poems titled "Night Sky With Exit Wounds." I am not well-versed in literature, so I can't pinpoint exactly why his writing is so beautiful. I just know that it sounds gorgeous to me. One of the things I love about the book is the relationships between the main character, Little Dog, and various other characters, such as his grandma and grandpa, and his best friend. I also initially thought that Little Dog was based on Ocean Vuong himself and then I remembered that this is a novel not a biography, but I eventually treated the book as a semi-autobiographical novel, which made more sense (for me at least). Would I recommend this book to others? It depends. I would recommend it to strangers on the internet, but I might not recommend it to people I know in real life, considering the various controversial topics that are present in the novel. Nevertheless, it is a fantastic novel, and I don't regret buying it despite my current financial situation. It was worth every penny.