Mostly Queer Book Club discussion

This is a dedicated space for everyone to discuss our August Monthly Read: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.

this was my suggestion and a reread for me (the first time i've ever read a book twice in one year), so my opinion is extremely biased! i have nothing but praise for this book. i'm not even exaggerating when i say i've hoarded nearly 30 screenshots worth of quotes that made me go absolutely feral with my own humanity from this e-book onto my phone...

for example,
"the children, the veal, they stand very still because tenderness depends on how little the world touches you. to stay tender, the weight of your life cannot lean on your bones."

and also,
"i want to insist that our being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication. and so what? so what if all i ever made of my life was more of it?"

like... are you kidding me????? absolutely feral!

i think it's the gritty yet eloquent way he talks about his experience that really draws me to it. i know it contains a lot of sensitive topics and i completely understand why someone wouldn't want to read it, but for me, that's its selling point. my life hasn't been all sunshine either, so reading books like this one are validating. in a sense, he's writing about the human experience and in a way i identify with, even though we haven't lived the same life.

he's got a background in poetry and it really shows. he's not only telling a tragically realistic story; there's a whole poetic layer to everything that paints the picture of not only his life, but his mental landscape in the process and i think that's so amazing. his metaphors, analogies, and striking use of juxtaposition hurt me in the best way.

can i call a body of text loud? because that's how it felt to me. being a semi-autobiographical novel, the terrible things that happened to "little dog" were ocean vuong yelling his ugly truth. and as a person who wants to write something personal like this in the future, i can't begin to articulate how inspiring it is to hear his voice loud and clear. i wish i could rip the feeling this book gives me out of my body and show you guys because i could honestly never do it justice lmao.

is this a hot take? what did you guys think?! i'm so curious about how it effects others. maybe i'm just literally insane idk.

First of all, thank you Andrea for suggesting this book! I’ve wanted to read it for a long time, so I guess it was finally time haha.
My thoughts are a bit all over the place x). I’ll try to keep it simple haha

Ocean Vuong’s writing is truly incredible, I have a ton of highlighted passages and quotes as well hahaha.
My personal favorite is : « I am thinking of freedom again, how the calf is most free when the cage opens and it's led to the truck for slaughter. All freedom is relative–you know too well–and sometimes it's no freedom at all, but simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they "free" wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders. But I took it anyway, that widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough. »
I could not explain why exactly, but it deeply resonates with me.

I had a hard time going through the first part, with this pretty elaborated writing style, the long sentences and all the stylistic devices. Sometimes I had to re-read the same line a few times before actually getting the meaning of it. (I know I should have bought it in French, but the translation was like three times more expensive than the English e-book and I’m broke haha)
I was also a bit confused with all the storylines going on at once in part one.
That being said, this feeling went away with parts 2 and 3, and in the end I enjoyed the book a lot!!

It tackles a lot of different issues and heavy subjects, but personally it did not bother me. I totally agree with you when you say he's been writing about human experience; I think such stories, whether they're real or fictional, are opportunities to reflect on yourself and your own story.
It reminds me of a short interview I watched after finishing my read. When he was asked about his hope for the readers with his book, he answered: « I would hope that readers approach the book, read it, and not necessarily take anything away, not possess anything, but perhaps […] see more of themselves in the book, and they can carry that and participate in more parts of their lives than before. »

I don't really know what else to say haha. Thank you again, it was a wonderful discovery that deeply touched me!

Anaïs wrote: "First of all, thank you Andrea for suggesting this book! I’ve wanted to read it for a long time, so I guess it was finally time haha.
My thoughts are a bit all over the place x). I’ll try to keep i..."

oh my god, i never thought to watch interviews?! i'm going to have to do that for sure because i'm a little obsessed at this point. also! i don't know if it's available in france or not, but there's an app i use called libby that lets you check out audio and e-books through your library. you just have to have a library card and wait for books to be available sometimes, but it's totally free and it's saved me SO much money. and if they don't have that, maybe search around for an equivalent? i just don't want people to spend a bunch of money when they don't have to.

yeah i know about these, sadly the only library near my house is my college's so they don't have a lot of novels :(

i love watching authors' interviews and learn about how they see their own books! there are a few of ocean vuong on youtube if you're interested :D

Sorry for joining the discussion so late-- I'm in Nashville, TN and will be driving back to California, so my presence and consistency throughout the discussions might be spotty!

I read this as an audiobook, and it was a little hard to follow in terms of understanding the timelines (especially in the beginning, and with such flowery language) but overall, I enjoyed the book.

Some of the imagery was unexpected in its graphic nature (I didn't take it too seriously when Andrea advised people to look up a CW list LOL that was my bad) but his use of language was really truly something. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about the author or the book itself, and was pleasantly surprised. I feel like these types of books are usually wasted on me since I don't typically enjoy memoirs and don't read a lot of poetry! That being said, the severity of his words was really compelling and kept me wrapped into it. Ocean Vuong being the narrator added an extra layer to the experience as well. I think it might not have had the same effect had his own voice not been the vessel for the book!

It was really different from my usual reads, so thanks for recommending it!