Welcome to Litsy!

I knew a few things going into this novel.

I knew it was a Vietnamese boy writing a letter to his mother who could not read.

I knew the writing had been described as beautiful.

Both things turned out to be true.

I was surprised by the events and stories told in this book, and I think you're at an advantage not knowing too much before reading it.

“I am writing to reach you - even if each word I put down is one word farther from where you are.”

Current read

Bleak & heartbreaking, this novel is based on the author's life. He writes to his mother, an immigrant from Vietnam with her own horrifying history. The poetic, haunting writing was my favorite part. It was painful & uncomfortable to read because it puts someone else's raw anguish on full display. As he struggles with abuse from his mom, drug addiction, bullying, & his sexuality he is honest & vulnerable. TWs abound. Cont…

I haven‘t been playing #TLT, so I went back & checked-off all 3 lists. I have to admit…my results are less impressive than expected! I‘m averaging about 20 books per list.

Some favorites from this week:

🌖 On Earth We‘re Briefly Gorgeous (which I read long after graduating from AP English class)
💐 Mrs. Dalloway (who bought the flowers herself)
🐋 Moby Dick (which I‘ve read at least thrice. Does that get me extra points? 😅)

Link below.👇🏻

❤️absolute love, my favourite book of 2024. I picked this up on Book Street in Hanoi and it was the perfect read for coming home. A story of three generations, written as a long letter to his mother, increasingly in poetic form. Love, pain, the American experience, a Vietnamese experience. The view of a ‘refugee‘ sees things we may not, loves words we throw aside. I‘m totally enraptured.

Ocean Vuong's novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a beautiful collection of letters about Little Dog's experiences as he grows up. He reflects on his memories by writing to his mother, who cannot read or speak much English. The overall theme of this fictional epistolary is finding your place in society and overcoming challenges to discover your identity. This theme is strong when Little Dog shares and reminds his mother of the difficulties-

The fiction novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong is a collection of memories and recollections in letter form, from the first-person perspective of the main character 'Little Dog', a Vietnamese boy. Little Dog is writing to his mother about his rediscovered memories of moving to America after the Vietnam war. Little Dog writes to his mother who cannot read, trying to show her who he is and what it means to be truly human...

Hi there lovelies! I have been MIA for a long time, hope all of you are doing great!

P. S. Do we have a support group, folks?😭80 pages in, this book is melancholic and oh-so-beautiful!

P. P. S. what's with Litsy missing on the Android Play Store?😥

This book was haunting. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A moving novel about the struggles of a Vietnamese boy growing up and negotiating his identity in a foreign country. A harsh depiction of his reality combined with rich meaning beyond the mundane- a book I absolutely loved. Hard, soft and very touching.

Wednesday morning reading. #audiobook

Brutal and raw and simultaneously nurturing and warm. Told in the first person/memoir style, this book recollects events of pasts with fondness the wrath, and enrapturing love of a mother. It touches upon the liability of trauma, to be intergenerational/transgenerational. Full of poetic ornamentations in his sentence structures and use of poetic devices, it is enriched with both emotive and ingenious conceits of the author. Infinitely adored It!

I loved the way Vuong flitted between stories.

And Connecticut. Close to my heart.

Beautiful, thought-provoking prose reflecting on a first generation Vietnamese experience in America, particularly from the lens of a gay man, with immigrant, war-surviving mother & grandmother. The narrative is non-traditional, flitting between memories rather than a coherent “plot”, so it may not be for everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this for the prose, the imagery, and the ecological analogies.

I can see why so many people enjoy this novel; however, I‘m not a fan. The writing was intriguing, but it got annoying after awhile with all the attempts at having symbolism and deeper meanings. It wasn‘t a terrible read as I had a little self-reflection during the novel, but I wasn‘t enthralled by it. It seemed like the author was trying too hard, especially with the abrupt stops and jumping around. Overall, it wasn‘t anything special.

Ocean wrote a letter (more like a memoir) to his deceased mother. There were some great chapters that brought the emotions out but many other chapters were kind of dull. Many times I wondered the purpose of some of the stories and how it connected with his mom. It left me wanting to read more about his relationship with his mom instead of his lover.
3 ⭐️

#bookspinbingo #16 @TheAromaofBooks
#marchmadness @DieAReader @Andrew65 @GHABI4ROSES

I'm not sure about this one. Set up to be a poignant semi-autobiography of a gay man and his relationship with his first lover Trevor, and his Vietnamese Mother and Grandmother- who moved to America as a result of the war in Vietnam. There were lovely moments but I just couldn't grasp at any coherency within the themes and I don't really understand what any of it was about to be honest 😂 Maybe it was above me on an intellectual level. Who knows.

I am in awe of this book and its author‘s lyrical writing. The ease with which I have been taken through stories, past and present, the descriptions that simply paint photos for how evocative and detailed they are, the layers of history, countries‘, families‘ histories and personal ones. Such an incredible read.

Fun fact: I almost never purchase books brand new and exclusively buy from thrift stores. Got all these at Savers tonight. ✨🤍

Let me begin again. Dear Ma, I am writing to reach you - even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are.

#Firstlinefridays @ShyBookOwl

Finall finding time to read this! So far I very much enjoy the poetic language 💙 the story feels kind of vague so far, but also very touching glimpses of an immigrant life!

#Alphabetgame
#LetterO

On earth we are briefly gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

This book is a mixture of everything happy, sad, first times, heartbreak, loss, misunderstanding mental health, read by Ocean himself with his emotional warmth and bluntness.

#currentlyreading this for a queer book club tomorrow. Also orange muffins are love.

Am I on a bookbuying ban? Absolutely! Does that mean I can leave a bookstore without a new book? Absolutely not😅 I‘ve heard many good things about this book, so I‘m already excited to start it! We‘re going on vacation next weekend and I‘m planning on bringing this as a backup to my ebook reader💙

Semi-autobiographical novel about a gay, mixed-race Vietnamese boy who immigrated to America as a small child with his mother and grandmother.

Gorgeous writing that really drew the reader into the scenes described but I found it ultimately disappointing because for me it didn't really cohere as a narrative.

#unpopularopinion

I listened to this on audio and the author's voice was so gentle and soothing.
Broke my heart but also wrapped it up again.

#HappyPride
#queerbooks
#LGBTQ
#GAYPRIDE

#coffeeandabook

#pridebookrec
G for Gay
Gorgeous is the word for this one. Ocean Vuong's writing is outstandingly beautiful. A letter from a son to his illiterate mother, this is loosely based on the author 's life and is worth every word of reading.

I had to sit on this review for a while and decided it as a pick! I have not stopped thinking about this book since I finished it. Wildly intense, emotionally— I think 250-ish pages was a perfect length for it. It‘s a masterful blend of form and function: poetic prose and emotional intensity that‘s well-matched for such an indelible, intimate read.

Pardon the spelling and the penmanship— I‘m about halfway through the book now. I thought this cartoon from my day journal summarized my thoughts pretty accurately

"Yes, there was a war. Yes, we came from its epicenter. In that war, a woman gifted herself a new name-Lan-in that naming claimed herself beautiful, then made that beauty into something worth keeping. All this time I told myself we were born from war-but I was wrong, Ma. We were born from beauty."

A heart-breaking, raw and grief-stricken confession written in a beautiful poetic prose. The story itself reminded me of "Transcendent Kingdom"...

Started this last night and finished part 1 this morning. It‘s beautifully written and absolutely devastating. It reads more like poetry than a novel with the rich descriptions and different recollections of memories.

so good and so tragic. i do think the author‘s style could get old; ending every section with a quippy metaphor… but still an amazing read

Poety reading at the 92Y!

Very excited to finally have a copy of this. Also grabbed a copy of Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong.

This was really bleak. It was just such a depressing story with one thing after another that was just hard to read about. I liked it. I just didn‘t love it. It jumped around a lot and it was hard to follow in some points. The writing was absolutely beautiful but the style just was hard for me to get into.

This was a buddy read with my son who loves this author. The writing was absolutely beautiful, such lyrical prose which I appreciated. The book was just not my type of thing but it was lovely to listen to

Like snow covering the particulars of the city, they will say we never happened, that our survival was a myth. But they‘re wrong. You and I, we were real. We laughed knowing joy would tear the stitches from our lips.

Can't believe I forgot to review this! I mean I love poetic prose so this was always going to be one for me, the blend of the autobiographical stories and bittersweet ideals works perfectly and I thoroughly enjoyed it

"Did you know people get rich off of sadness? I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, 'it's been an honor to serve my country."

The title of this book made me want to read it more than anything. It's such beautiful writing, containing more meaning in some sentences than most books have in their entirety.
?❤

Book 207

What a beautiful, complicated, hard book. This autobiographical novel is a letter to the author‘s mother. It covers topics like racism, immigration, war, imperialism, inter generational trauma, opioids and youth overdoses, sexuality, the intersection of race and sexuality, poverty, addiction, mental illness, abuse, and the way decades of manual labor break down a person‘s body. I highly recommend reading it.

Book 14 of 2021 - can see why this has been so highly praised. Quite poetic at times, which I sometimes struggle to engage with, but definitely worth a read. Raw, honest and beautiful. 4 ⭐️s

“Sometimes, when I‘m careless, I think survival is easy: you just keep moving forward with what you have, or what‘s left of what you were given, until something changes—or you realize, at last, that you can change without disappearing, that all you had to do was wait until the storm passes you over and you find that—yes—your name is still attached to a living thing.”

—Ocean Vuong

“We try to preserve life -- even when we know it has no chance of enduring its body. We feed it, keep it comfortable, bathe it, medicate it, caress it, even sing to it. We tend to these basic functions not because we are brave or selfless but because, like breath, it is the most fundamental act of our species: to sustain the body until time leaves it behind“ (198).