Tag: book-reviews

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

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A review on On Earth we're Briefly Gorgeous

By Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong is an accomplished poet. I did not know of this fact, until reading few pages of this book. After having a hard time in understanding the prose, I googled him and got to know, that this book of his is rich in his poetic words as well.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a semi-autobiographical novel of the author, just like how my last fiction read was. The author is a Vietnamese immigrant to the US, whose mother and grandmother emigrated after the Vietnam war. The book is written in the form of a boy writing to his illiterate mother, where he pours down everything he has ever wanted to share with his mother. Knowing her mother can not read the words, gives the man courage to write everything down.

Even though I had to take few minutes at each page, trying to make sense of the paragraphs, the book was such an enriching experience. The author has phrased each word so brilliantly, it left me wondering on the emotion, behind those words. The emotions at play, were not so clear, as if that is what the author aimed to give away.

I have not developed a liking towards any fiction – series, movies, books that have queer main characters, until this book. The Little Dog, the protagonist, is gay and has an intimate relationship with one of the boys he works along with in the Tobacco fields. The conversation, the doubts, the emotions were so naturally depicted, it felt so fresh to read the narrative.

The boy writes to his mother, describing the toil she had to go through, being an immigrant, without speaking the language, and how hard she has to work for them to survive in the land, where she is already Vietnamese. He describes them, in a vivid manner, to say that he notices them and has felt helpless in those times, and swore to help his mom in any way, that he can, be it as little as beginning to be the fluent speaker of the foreign language for his family.

His grandmother, Lan, who named herself when she came to this place, after facing the brutalities of the war head-on, and yearning for rice, in her last breath, was the pillar of the generation. The mother and the daughters had rough and brief relationships with the men of their life. When the man writes about them, he tries to paint the picture of what a boy saw, and how he tried to make sense of it, when it was all happening. This eliminates the intense suffering the women had gone through from the picture, but now the man knows, the women have had to bear a lot in their hearts.

Death, when it comes to the boy’s life, it comes many times, taking away the lives of people, making him dread the word goodbye. The words describing the last moments are again so descriptive, that they do not give space to process them, but wonder at the reality of letting a life leave a body, and living the life with the fact.

I think, this book leaves a lasting impact of looking at life, if you let it marinade it for a while. I don’t recommend it reading the book like how books are devoured these days, but a slow reading will help the reader grasp the intensity of the words the author shares so poetically in the passages.

The most lovely part to me, was how the grandmother still finds beauty in purple flowers, after all the hardships she had gone through. How she tries to capture the beauty and keep it close to her heart, in her home. Besides the destruction, uprooting of a family, trying to find a place and be non-existent, the family still finds beauty in life.

An absolute gorgeous read, that leaves questioning the limits of one’s emotions!

I found a book that will stay close to my heart – All My Mothers

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All My Mothers

All My Mothers by Joanna Glen

When Eva finds no photos of herself before the age of three, she begins to suspect that she may have been born to a different mother. As she connects the dots—the absence of early photographs, the emotional distance between her and the woman she calls “mother,” and the flimsy reasons given for those missing years—her doubts deepen.

What Eva truly longs for is a sense of motherly love—the kind she sees Bridget, her friend, receive so freely. In a charming touch, she begins comparing the women in her life to those in a children’s book she reads at school, The Rainbow Rained Us, where different kinds of mothers are described using colors. In this world, her mother is a “pink mother,” while Bridget’s is clearly a “blue mother.”

This book unfolds as a poignant coming-of-age story. Eva’s father is often absent, and when she stumbles upon a childhood photo taken in a Spanish patio—featuring a woman whose head is cut off from the image—a mysterious fondness for Spain begins to take root. Life leads her to places she has yearned for, and to others she never chose.

I have never related to a fictional story the way I related to All My Mothers. The ache of searching for motherly love while having a mother is a quiet, difficult feeling to explain—let alone admit to anyone. You start looking for love, approval, or warmth from other adult women in your life. And as time passes, you may find yourself drawn more deeply into friendships, searching for the kind of companionship your heart longs for. Eva’s story isn’t very different.

Throughout her journey, she categorizes every woman she meets into a type of mother from The Rainbow Rained Us. Along the way, she encounters various forms of love and learns to find beauty in fleeting moments. Joanna Glen does a brilliant job subtly expressing the idea that love is everywhere—you only need to start looking for the essence of it.

The descriptions of architecture, especially in Cordoba, are vivid and transportive. Glen’s writing creates a virtual tour of Spain, igniting curiosity in the reader. Her lyrical style brings places to life and makes them feel within reach.

What I especially loved was how the story progressed through Eva’s evolving friendships, her romantic experiences, and the many beautiful relationships she forges. Glen captures the quiet presence of regret that comes with losing a loved one. The way she conveys the grief—tinged with confusion—is one of the most accurate and tender portrayals I’ve read.

If you enjoy coming-of-age stories with elegant narration and rich, atmospheric detail, I highly recommend this book. It gave me chills in the best way, especially during some of Eva’s most profound experiences.

Life is a journey filled with lessons, questions, doubts, and beautiful answers—each shaped by perspective. This book is a gentle, powerful reminder of that.

Rating: 4.5/5

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang: A Satirical Punch to the Publishing Industry

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Who owns a story?

This is the thought lingering in my mind after reading Yellowface. R.F. Kuang, after her widely acclaimed dark academia novel Babel, ventures into satirical literary fiction, focusing on the publishing industry.

The book features a small cast of characters—June Hayward, an aspiring writer, and her friend Athena Liu, a successful author. Athena dies in an accident, and June discovers her unpublished manuscript. Believing it to be Athena’s final work, June takes it upon herself to get it published. However, beneath this decision lies a deeper truth—June has long harbored mixed feelings about Athena’s success. More often than not, she sees Athena as privileged from the start.

June goes on to publish Athena’s work under her own name, justifying her actions by convincing herself that she put in the effort necessary to complete it. She struggles with guilt but eventually frames herself as the victim, feeling as though the world is against her and that no one could possibly understand her reasoning. She argues that the publishing industry favors “diverse” writers and stories like Athena’s, while white American authors like herself are increasingly sidelined.

After a while, the book becomes unsettling. For me, it blurred the lines between reality and fiction. The internet is flooded with book reviews and critiques, and in many ways, it is a democratic space—anyone with access can share their thoughts and opinions. Personally, I hesitate to call myself a reviewer, as I mostly write about my personal takeaways after finishing a book. I understand that reviewing literature is nuanced and requires a careful approach. That’s why I found Kuang’s portrayal of online reviews as a major metric for literary success somewhat shortsighted.

In my opinion, Yellowface is not truly satirical. Rather, it feels like a culmination of Kuang’s own thoughts and perceptions of the publishing industry. It’s blunt—perhaps even biased—especially considering that Kuang herself has had a relatively successful publishing journey compared to her peers. As I continued reading, I found myself less focused on the book’s themes of racism and cultural appropriation and more preoccupied with the limited, one-dimensional perspective of the industry. At times, it was difficult to read because Kuang struggled to fully establish her characters as either right or wrong.

That being said, don’t get me wrong—I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It’s gripping, and I couldn’t stop myself from turning the pages. Kuang’s vivid narration and rich details are irresistible. Through Yellowface, I gained insight into the hidden workings of the publishing world and how stories make their way to readers.

Rating: 4/5

Cleopatra and Frankenstein

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By Coco Mellors

This is a debut novel by the author.

I started of thinking if this is a romance novel. The story starts with the meet-cute and that is highly unlikely for a romantic novel. And hence this book is. Cleopatra and Frankenstein is more than romance, it is more than a relationship, but it dwells deeper into the aspects of life and the people it is embedded with.

Cleo is an art student from London, who lives in US and she might have to leave the country sooner and that’s when she meets Frank and they talk, flirt and like each other. Six months in, they get married. There is a constant doubt in the air whether they married for love or out of desperation. Frank is 40-something ad exec, while Cleo is trying to figure out an identity for herself.

The dynamics of their individual lives is already a lot, let alone the life they try to work out together. Cleo’s friendship with Quentin doesn’t make things easier. She had the longest friend in him. But, the perception of his life makes Quentin even more hard to work with. He tries to establish a status around Cleo, on how his friendship with Cleo will never be matched by any relationship of hers, be it her marriage.

It starts from a point where Quentin tries desperately to suppress his feelings to being immature about them. His hold on drugs and sabotaging relationships makes things go even more harder to restore to normalcy and adds on to Cleo’s plate. The uncertainty grappling both of them, makes their friendship go more incomprehensible.

Zoe, Frank’s sister tries to find her place in Frank’s life after his marriage to Cleo. She is studying and is monetarily dependent on Frank. Cleo wants to have a friendly relation with Zoe, for she feels Zoe can understand her more than any of the people in Frank’s circle because of their age as well as she knows how important is Zoe to Frank. Zoe and Cleo share a bond, but which the author fails to take it any further.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein’s side characters had a vivid life with too many details, but it misses when they just disappear as side characters. The author was trying to show how everyone in this world made sense but actually couldn’t make it to a point. Eleanor and a possible affair, completely drives the plot to a whole another path. I liked how Eleanor’s life was written in first person, it is hard to not like Eleanor. She is a simple 30-something woman who is still figuring out her life with her own set of obstacles.

Sometimes, it felt like Coco really liked the side characters and she went on talking about them and suddenly gets reminded of whom the book is about and returns back to them. But it is hard to not fall in love with them, so who am I to blame !

The plot was too short, too chaotic to give them a space to fill. It encompasses on relationship, marriage, friendships sometimes complicated, trauma and separation. But it was a whole less soup with many ingredients. They were flavorful, yes, but could have had much more as well.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein is an interesting read, you can take up your cup of coffee and enjoy the drama it has to unfold. Would have loved it more, if for less sway.

Rating: 4/5

Navigating Grief: A Candid Review of ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ by Joan Didion

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Do you remember that I had the goal of reading at least one of Joan Didion’s book in 2023, when the year began?

So here we go, let me embark on a heartfelt exploration of grief with Joan Didion’s ‘The Year of Magical Thinking.’ The book contained everything that a book on grief will venture upon, say the emotional depth, moments of reflection, but needless to say the narrative’s repetitive nature for emphasis, made me lose attention as well.

Compelling Introspection in Early Chapters

Didion’s eloquence invites readers to introspect on their own experiences of loss. The narrative skillfully captures the universal nature of grief, resonating with those who have navigated similar emotional landscapes.

In the opening chapters, Didion’s poignant prose captivates, into an introspective exploration of grief. Her raw and unfiltered reflections create a profound connection, making it a compelling read for anyone grappling with loss.

I was able to completely relate to her grief, it brought back my own memories, which I often wish, they were parts of a nightmare. The surrealness she describes, when she realizes her husband has passed away, not in the first night but in the upcoming nights, when she will be all alone, grappling the grief single-handedly is what the true form of grief seems like. One can not escape feeling sorry and heartbroken if they haven’t experienced such a personal loss.

Navigating the Labyrinth of Repetition

While the initial allure remains, the narrative encounters hurdles with repetitive content. The revisiting of certain themes may lead to occasional bouts of boredom, as the storytelling seemingly retraces familiar emotional territories.

Yet, as the narrative progresses, the recurrence of certain themes becomes apparent, posing a challenge to sustained engagement. The book revisits emotional landscapes, occasionally leading to a sense of monotony tested my patience.

An Unflinching Portrayal of Despair

As the story unfolds, a prevailing sense of hopelessness begins to overpower. Didion’s unflinching portrayal of grief can be emotionally taxing, making it a challenging read for those seeking a more uplifting perspective.

I read this book when I was reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin parallelly. In fact, the idea of reading this book was inspired by her book, which dedicates a chapter for gratitude and introspection. She explains how the grief memoirs made her feel the intensity of luck bestowed upon her. More on this book later…!

Hence, when I was reading with this mindset, the journey through ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ became increasingly challenging as a pervasive sense of hopelessness permeates the narrative. The emotional weight may be overwhelming for readers seeking a more balanced exploration of grief and healing.

‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ by Joan Didion offers a profound exploration of grief, prompting introspection and connection. However, the repetitive nature and the overarching sense of hopelessness may pose challenges for some readers, leading to moments of disengagement.

Rating: 3/5

Image credits: amazon