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A review by crispycritter
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Did not finish book. Stopped at 27%.
I kept seeing these beautiful quotes from OEWBG come up on the Tumblr-esque side of instagram, but unfortunately there’s no real narrative structure holding the occasional beautiful thought together.
I generally love 1st person stream of consciousness books with meandering or borderline non-existent plots. I don’t mind purple or highly lyrical prose. This book is basically a walking trigger warning, but even that didn’t make me put it down- because I thought the violence and horror were handled well.
This book just did not work for me. Poetry isn’t really my jam and this just felt like it should have been a collection of poems. I didn’t feel like there was much reason or justification for it being a “novel.” I dunno, perhaps auto fiction is just not for me and that’s the issue. It feels awful to say, given the heavy subject matter of this book, but it was boring. Boring and dark. And that’s not what I enjoy reading. Respectfully DNFing.
I generally love 1st person stream of consciousness books with meandering or borderline non-existent plots. I don’t mind purple or highly lyrical prose. This book is basically a walking trigger warning, but even that didn’t make me put it down- because I thought the violence and horror were handled well.
This book just did not work for me. Poetry isn’t really my jam and this just felt like it should have been a collection of poems. I didn’t feel like there was much reason or justification for it being a “novel.” I dunno, perhaps auto fiction is just not for me and that’s the issue. It feels awful to say, given the heavy subject matter of this book, but it was boring. Boring and dark. And that’s not what I enjoy reading. Respectfully DNFing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, Murder, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail