On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

“I am writing because they told me never to start a sentence with because. But I wasn’t trying to make a sentence一I was trying to break free. Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and the prey.”

I absolutely love this book. The main character recounts his life to his dying mother in a letter he knows he will never send. He talks about his Vietnamese identity and his sexual orientation. This book also deals with his mother and grandmother’s trauma from the Vietnam War. I swear I am literally in love with the writing style. Just look at these quotes: “To be or not to be. That is the question. A question, yes, but not a choice,” and “Because a bullet, without a body, is like a song without ears.” 

10/10 – Fiction