Goodreads Score: 4.21/5 ☆
Moods: Emotional, Reflective, Sad
Content Warnings: Death, War

“Ocean Vuong’s first full-length poetry collection aims straight for the perennial ‘big,’ and very human, subjects of romance, family, memory, grief, war, and melancholia.”

This is a work best read slowly and out loud. Many may recognize Vuong for his popular work On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and this work also carries that arresting quality that comes from an urgent desire to communicate. He uses the natural world frequently to reflect beauty, but also danger and loss.

Some images are beautiful; some are painful, some are obscure, but the combination paints a picture of distinct personality and independent voice. To quote a review by author Roxane Gay, “this is a lovely lovely book of poems. Nearly every poem ended in a way that left me saying ‘mmmmm’ with pleasure or admiration or the quiet of feeling stunned by such beautiful words.”