On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. It reads as a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Nominee for the National Book Award for Fiction and the Kirkus Prize for Fiction.


Rainbow Reads for Adults

  • The Great Believers


  • Disintegrate/Dissociate: Poems


  • Under the Udala Trees


  • On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous


  • Me, Myself, They


  • The Lie and How We Told It


  • Cantoras


  • I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World


  • I Hope You Stay


  • How We Fight For Our Lives: A Memoir


  • Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture


  • We Had No Rules


  • Mean


  • My Favorite Thing is Monsters