Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong

5 reviews

sheriffrockyraccoon's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Devastating.

Especially now, everyone knows Ocean Vuong and his work. While I was familiar, this is the first time I’ve sat down and read one of his publications. His writing is absolutely beautiful and haunting, and can often be difficult to digest.

I don’t really have any criticisms of his work, I believe it has a strong voice and beautiful style, but I was not expecting the content to be so heavy and visceral. If you wish to read his work, make sure you are in a good headspace and take the time you need to process each poem, and care for yourself in the meantime.

I would recommend this to anyone interested in contemporary poetry. His work is beautiful, albeit incredibly depressing. I also think anyone interested in Woolf and Plath would greatly enjoy his work.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

While these warnings are not explicit in their descriptions, the emotion and pain is there. Be cautious when reading.

thalia16's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Animal death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Colonisation, and War

gabriella_'s review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

3.25

I think the poetry was well-written but some of the topic matter wasn’t really for me. I went in thinking this was more of a series of poems tying into family struggles and grief but I found a lot of it lewd and about other things. That’s fine but just not what I expected.

I wish I read this after On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous instead

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Violence, Grief, Alcohol, and War

kia_y_k's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and War

marissasa's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective

3.75

Ocean Vuong's writing is beautiful as always and his command of the english language is honestly unmatched. This poetry collection felt deeply personal and emotional, to the point where I felt like it was written solely for himself and I was taking a peek into a part of his brain, reading his inner thoughts. Some pieces hit harder than others and that's the nature of any poetry collection, but for this one there were only 2 that stood out from the rest to me: "The Gift" and "To My Father / To My Future Son". I also think it was interesting reading this after his book On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous because some of the lines referenced moments and situations in Vuong's life that seem to be referenced in his book too. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Sexual content, Blood, Grief, Car accident, and War