Critical response
At the review aggregator website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream literary critics, the novel received a cumulative "Positive" rating based on 41 reviews: 22 "Rave" reviews, 14 "Positive" reviews, and 5 "Mixed" reviews.[11] The novel debuted at number six on The New York Times Hardcover Fiction best-sellers list for the week ending June 8, 2019.[12] It spent six weeks on the list.[13]
Kirkus Reviews, in a rave review, wrote, "The result is an uncategorizable hybrid of what reads like memoir, bildungsroman, and book-length poem. More important than labels, though, is the novel's earnest and open-hearted belief in the necessity of stories and language for our survival. A raw and incandescently written foray into fiction by one of our most gifted poets."[14] Ron Charles of The Washington Post praised the novel, calling it "permanently stunning".[15] In his review for Time, Vietnamese-American novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote, "Vuong refuses to be embarrassed. He transforms the emotional, the visceral, the individual into the political in an unforgettable–indeed, gorgeous–novel, a book that seeks to affect its readers as profoundly as Little Dog is affected".[16] Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Steph Cha called the novel "a book of sustained beauty and lyricism, earnest and relentless, a series of high notes that trembles exquisitely almost without break."[17] Writing in The New Yorker, Jia Tolentino sees the "structural hallmarks of Vuong's poetry—his skill with elision, juxtaposition, and sequencing" in the novel.[18]
Dwight Garner of The New York Times gave the novel a mixed review, writing, "Vuong's writing about nail salons, and the way mothers raised their children in them, is moving and rarely less than excellent. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is, at the same time, filled with showy, affected writing, with forced catharses and swollen quasi-profundities. There are enough of these that this novel's keel can lodge in the mud."[19]
Accolades
| Organizations[a] | Year[b] | Category | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Library Association | 2020 | Andrew Carnegie Medals | Longlisted | [20] |
| Stonewall Book Award for Literature | Honored | [21] | ||
| Aspen Words | 2020 | Aspen Words Literary Prize | Longlisted | [22] |
| Before Columbus Foundation | 2020 | American Book Awards | Won | [23] |
| Bibliotekets litteraturpris | 2022 | Literature for Adults | Nominated | [24] |
| Brooklyn Public Library | 2020 | Literary Prize for Fiction/Poetry | Won | [25] |
| Connecticut Book Awards | 2020 | Fiction | Won | [26] |
| Digital Book World | 2019 | Best Book (Fiction) | Won | [27] |
| Dublin City Libraries | 2021 | International Dublin Literary Award | Finalist[c] | [28] |
| Dylan Thomas Prize | 2020 | Novel | Finalist[c] | [29] |
| Goodreads Choice Awards | 2019 | Best Debut Novel | Nominated | [30] |
| Best Fiction | Nominated | |||
| Kirkus Reviews | 2019 | Kirkus Prize for Fiction | Finalist | [31] |
| Lambda Literary Awards | 2020 | Gay Fiction | Finalist | [32] |
| Mark Twain House | 2020 | Mark Twain American Voice in Literature | Won | [33] |
| Massachusetts Book Award | 2020 | Fiction | Won | [34] |
| National Book Award | 2019 | Fiction | Longlisted | [35] |
| New England Book Awards | 2019 | Fiction | Won | [36] |
| PEN America | 2020 | PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel | Longlisted | [37] |
| PEN/Faulkner Foundation | 2020 | PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction | Finalist | [38] |
| Publishing Triangle | 2020 | Ferro-Grumley Award | Won | [39] |
| The Center for Fiction | 2019 | First Novel Prize | Finalist[c] | [40] |
