I knew this book would have an emotional wallop so I held off for a while. It's clear Ocean Vuong is drawing on his own experience in this novel, because it shares some of the sentiments and emotions I experienced in his poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds.

Oh how I love when a poet writes essays or novels. The language is powerful, the way some pieces are linear but others return to themes and core experiences is very moving. It starts out speaking to the violence in families, looks at language and belonging, moves to sexuality and connection (even when the other person is flawed,) all through the narration of "Little Dog" in a letter to his mama, one he doesn't believe she will ever read, so he can be honest.

I find some parallels with The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, in the sense that they both used fiction to explore their experiences leaving Vietnam and coming of age in America, but Nguyen's exploration is topical and political while Vuong explores the heart and mind. Both look at memory but the two novels are so very different.

The WaPo review by Ron Charles pointed me to the audio excerpt in SoundCloud read by the author. If your heart can take it, the audio sounds powerful, but I would have had to take even more time to listen because I find the emotional intensity a bit overwhelming. But, you know, more of that please.

ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS by Ocean Vuong is a debut novel which has received a great deal of praise from authors such as Tommy Orange (There, There) and Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere). In fact, both of the latter mentioned novels have been required reading in our curriculum, but I have doubts that Vuong's work would become assigned reading due largely to "explicit descriptions of the[ir] erotic adventures" as noted by Ron Charles in his book review published by The Washington Post. This powerful work is told by Little Dog, a Vietnamese refugee who grew up in Hartford with his mother and grandmother. ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS received starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus and it addresses important questions of identity, the refugee experience, and post-traumatic stress of war.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was extremely different than any other book I've read before. First, the book is labeled as a novel, but it reads very much like a memoir. It felt autobiographical and too honest to be fictional. Ocean Vuong wrote this book in a stream of consciousness style while left very little for plot. The narrator is writing to his mother and talks about different fragments of memories, time, events, etc. The timeline is all over the place and hard to follow if you're trying to understand the family's timeline. The main character who is affectionately referred to as "Little Dog" is Vietnamese and moved to the US as a young child. He recalls stories that his mother and his grandmother have told him of their time back in Vietnam. Topics regarding the Vietnam War are discussed as well as becoming a writer, life of immigrants, mental illness, human sexuality, cancer and the Opioid Epidemic. As the protagonist/narrator is of the millennial generation, many things he discusses are relatable to people in that generation, but from the skewed viewpoint of an immigrant queer boy. The use of language and syntax in this novel is far different than what I'm used to reading and honestly, it was very hard for me to follow. It was beautiful to read and if I could probably dissect this book and try to understand every meaning Vuong put into his sentences. The novel read like poetry in its use of sentences, punctuation, paragraph structure and metaphors. I'm not a huge fan of poetry so that's probably why this book didn't connect with me as much as I had hoped. I am glad that I read it however, as ingesting different types of art in book form is always good. I like diversifying my choices of reading. I don't know many people personally who I would recommend this book to, but I feel that fans of certain poets could enjoy this book.

This review is also posted on Goodreads and my personal blog.

I received an ARC of this memoir from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very raw story about a young man who grows up in a home where several of the adults suffer from mental health issues.

It would make a great book club choice for discussion purposes.

This was a poetic, heavy, dreamy-yet-sad, novel about quite a range of life experience, from the lasting damage of war on the psyche, to the ultimate questions surrounding the Vietnam War, in particular, to growing up fatherless. The author heavily meditates on what it means to be Vietnamese in America; what it means for his non-English speaking mother with PTSD, his non-English speaking grandmother with her own horrors of war, his "yellow" skin among a sea of white and brown. He also examines a life lived with his mother and grandmother, who both have some intense demons that come out and attack him. On top of it all, he is also gay, so the story of his boyhood and adjusting to his life as a gay, Vietnamese man, is also a thread running through. The book itself is told with such a mastery of language and feeling, alternating between prose poetry, narrative, and sometimes broken poetry stanzas. I felt so much reading this book, and, though devastating in a multitude of ways, this book was beautiful.

It's been a while since I've read a book so touching, so moving that I cried while reading it. There is something so tender and stirring about Vuong's writing, a mix of prose, poetry, and epistle. As he moves through explaining his life to his mother, not always chronologically, but more thematically, he touches on so many topics and explains and synthesizes them in ways I am still ruminating.

This is not a book for those who like straight-forward plot and action or even characterization, because there isn't much of that. There is plot, action, character, but these serve as vessels for the discovery of deeper meaning and truth in pain, death, war, poverty, etc.

I've had a heck of a time getting through this book, not because it's a bad book, or strangely written, or a hard story to follow. In fact, it is one of the simplest stories, most well-written and touching books I've read in a while. However, simplicity can be deceptive, and this book was quite harrowing and hard to process.

It is ultimately a story of the trauma of war, the trauma of immigration, the trauma of discovering your sexuality in secret, and how these burdens are so hard to bear. Little Dog is writing a letter to his mother who has immigrated along with his grandmother and his aunt from war torn Vietnam to the United States. Both the grandmother and the mother have vestiges of mental illness, as well as PTSD from their lives in Vietnam. The little boy is affected by this, but as he grows older he begins to grapple with his attraction to males, especially his ill-fated romance with a young white man.

The prose of this book is beautiful, and the heavy sadness of all the characters are very affecting. At the same time, the devotion and complicated love between the mother, and the grandmother, and the son and the mother are beautiful and inspiring. I think this is what makes this book hard to read, just the weight of everything that these people are carrying around, both good things, and bad things, and how they must find a way to navigate forward, no matter what. I have only read a few of Ocean Vuong's poems before, but I will most certainly seek out more of them since reading this book. I look forward to other novels he has to write.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is the story from first-generation Vietnamese-American son to his mother. It is intense, well-written, and has a stream-of-consciousness feel to it. I didn't know anything about Vuong going into reading this one, but I'm definitely curious to learn more. I have ordered a couple copies for my library. Thank you!

I purposefully did not look at Vuong's biography before starting this book, and I could tell by the incredible descriptions of Hartford and its surrounding area that he had to have lived there. Otherwise, even after reading a bio or two, I can't really tell how autobiographical the novel is, which is as it should be. The epistolary form is always a draw for me. In this case, I wasn't quite convinced that the long sections about Trevor would have explained anything to Rose. They were my favorite sections, though, so I would not have wanted any less of them.

Having read the digital ARC, I cannot WAIT to see how these lines and paragraphs appear on the page. I'm sure that Vuong's training as a poet means they will have been laid out with intention, and I look forward to finding that in the published copy.

I didn't know this was a novel when I picked it up, but having read Ocean Vuong's poetry I feel confident saying his prose doesn't fall short. This is an emotional read for sure, especially for those who may connect with or relate to certain elements of this book. I was, to be honest, hesitant to read it once I learned it was a novel because I wanted to read more of Vuong's poetry, but it was a good read nonetheless.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Absolutely beautiful. Vuong is truly an amazing wordsmith and story-teller. Little Dog and his mother will find their way into your heart and stay with you for long after the last page.

Great story, Gorgeous (and I do mean GORGEUS) writing. Loved this and savored every word. Highly recommended!

I wanted to enjoy this novel, as I'd been intrigued by Vuong's poetry. However, I think it is quite clear, that novel may not be his strongest form. While there were many bursts of veracity and beauty, they were sadly outnumbered by pretentious and unnecessary detail. This line, particularly, seemed quite ridiculous: "It was not until the blood ran from his mother's nose, turning her white shirt the color of Elmo on Sesame Street."

What we have here is a great poet making one too many nimble turns to surprise his reader.

ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS is the new, highly original, American novel of the millennial era. Little Dog, a Vietnamese first generation American, writes a pensive letter to his mother. This letter is a lyrical, stream-of-consciousness personal history that illustrates the conflicting societal narratives, issues and experiences of adults who came of age in the late 90's and early 2000's- particularly for Asian Americans and other minorities. Anyone who grew up in America in the past 30 years has known or loved someone who has overdosed- and Little Dog wistfully recounts the heartbreak, anger and shame. Little Dog's searing truths about his family secrets, sexual awakening, and the poverty and addiction that have surrounded him are, to him, a private release- his mother cannot read- but the catharsis leaves the reader with much to mull over. Highly recommended for all.