On Earth We're Briefly GOrgeous

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me a while to meet this book where it wants to be read, which I think is probably at the sentence and thematic levels, with limited concern for narrative. That’s tough for me when a book is sold as a novel, but On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous demands such attention that I let go of my own need for the trappings of fiction relatively easily. I wouldn’t want it to be a longer book, but it sure was a nice way to spend some time.

Ocean takes a personal, deep look at ethnicity, sexuality, addiction, and the relationships between parents and their children, as well as the rippled trauma of the War across generations. It’s no small task, and the approach is spare and unflinching.

There are buckets of gorgeous, quotable sentences here, but how I loved, among others, this: “And what do you do to a boy like that but turn yourself into a doorway, a place he can go through again and again, each time entering the same room?”

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