Though I’m very late to reviewing this one, I really enjoyed it! It kept me interested, and I would recommend it to anyone who dabbles in this genre.

This was one of my favorite books of the year, and I had to go out and buy it. There is something shocking and rattling about the ways that Vuong captures subtle feelings and dispositions. It's hard to describe the feeling of reading this book, but it made me want to curl around it and melt into it. I felt so seen and heard in this one, and will read it many many times again.

You can tell this book is written by a poet because of its highly lyrical nature. The narrative casts a spell of words on the reader, drawing them in and not letting go until the very last page when one emerges from this book utterly wrung out. Incredibly effective semi-epistolary work of art.

On earth we’re briefly Gorgeous is a poignant, raw, letter written to a mother who can’t read. Little Dog is a gay Vietnamese American who spent most of his younger life translating a new country for his mother, Hong, and grandmother, Lan, while growing up and struggling with his identity. His family members’ mental illness (Hong clearly has PTSD, and Lan has schizophrenia) deeply shaped his life, too. He grew up in Hartford living with them, while his mom worked long hours in a nail salon, coming home too tired to stay awake. The story is told as a series of vignettes, interspersing scenes of past and present, of family and war and cycles of violence and moments of sweet humanity. Little Dog’s and his first love, Trevor met working on a farm one summer. He seemed wild and free to Little dog, but was always hemmed in by the drug addiction that eventually destroyed him.
I love this book because while it is fiction, the language is poetry, even beyond the one chapter that is actually in verse. One example: “You once told me that the human eye is God’s loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in it’s socket, doesn’t even know there’s another one just like it an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.” Vuong uses language like a virtuoso wields their instrument, coaxing previously unimagined combinations from its body.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is an ensorcelling and devastating debut novel by Ocean Vuong that absolutely wrecked me (the greatest privilege). It’s constructed as a letter from a boy, Little Dog, to his mother, a Vietnamese refugee who cannot read; within is a lush exploration of how to survive, and how to find meaning and pleasure in being alive. Reading it is like holding a child’s precious beating heart in your hands, remembering how it breaks, and then using that memory to heal it, and your own, together. Somehow, Vuong writes like he’s been writing for 300 years even though he’s only been on this planet for 30. Yes, feel free to feel terrible about yourself. But then recover so you can gobble up this book and sob inconsolably while doing so like I did.

A beautiful first novel by an accomplished poet. Absolutely deserved its status as a 2020 Stonewall Awards - Barbara Gittings Literature Award Honor Book.

This is easily my favorite book of 2019. I read it five times across three platforms, and fought hard to include it in my Composition II curriculum. Currently, I'm writing a conference paper on the importance of this title and the need to make space for Vuong's book in the classroom. The author (and I don't use this term lightly) transcends form and genre, offering us a book that is as lyrical as it is patient, as grief-stricken as it is hopeful. The best debut novel I have ever read.

And above that, his eyes: their grey irises smattered with bits of brown and ember so that, looking at them, you could almost see, right behind you, something burning under an overcast sky. It seemed the boy was always looking at a plane wrecking itself midair

This book is the difference between readers who want writing and readers who just want stories.

I loved the poetic writing of the book, but I hated the format. The story line seemed very fragmented and jumped around a lot. I'm afraid many of my students would find this book too confusing, or just too sad to finish. As much as I loved the writing, the subject matter made reading the book feel like walking through an automated car wash! I felt like each new page was a blow, but I couldn't stop reading...I had to get through it, hoping that everything would be better on the other side. This is a beautiful but painful story of a fractured family, each family member bearing his or her own trauma along with their combined family trauma. Not for the faint of heart!

I tend to like more plot-driven novels and this book is pretty light on plot but the beauty of the writing made up for it.

A powerful, moving work of epistolary fiction about relationships, family, and pain. It's legitimately one-of-a-kind.

The prose in this book is absolutely gorgeous-- Voung's background in poetry really shines through. Sometimes the weight of the story did feel like it was collapsing under the writing style, but for most of the book it really brought a new light to his discovery of his identity and his relationships with others.

This book is stunning and beautiful in its depiction of life within an abusive household, first love, and the immigrant experience. This book will break your heart and make you want to hug the author because you wonder how much is autobiographical and how much is fiction. It feels to be almost more of a memoir than a novel.

The turns-of-phrase in this book are stunningly gorgeous, and the authors status as a poet shines through in so many passages.

Bring Kleenex, bring emotional stamina, and stay for the beautiful prose and storytelling. Everyone should read this novel.

"You once told me that the human eye is God's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing."

One can forever search for an identity when you feel like the only one like yourself. No one sees what you see and no one can understand the world through you. This can cause a claustrophobic existential crisis. However, in Ocean Vuong's novel, we get to see his experience. He only has his mother and grandmother in his life. He is also gay which becomes further isolating until he meets someone while working as a day laborer harvesting tobacco. It is the love of his family and this man that builds connections. Trever would always be that love that helps find who you are.

Beautifully written we find the search for identity in being an immigrant, navigating a new environment, discovering his sexuality and finding connections.

I ran a positive wire review of the book in our 11 print sections of the Southern California News Group.

The writing was indeed gorgeous and left me with so much to ponder. I feel like I've lived with these characters yet all I have is snippets of who they are. In the end, I wanted more of a clearer story than the book delivered

The hype for this book was so well deserved. Even though it's slim, there's so much packed into it. The writing is gorgeous, and I've already recommended it to multiple patrons.

Believe the hype. This book is so beautifully written, it’s hard to believe one single person is this gifted.

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.