Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
The best books like On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous are Between the World and Me, The Alchemist, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong is about immigration and displacement, queerness and desire, mother and son. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- Between the World and Me
01
Ta-Nehisi Coates · Memoir
Between the World and Me is a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son, Samori, about what it means to live in a Black body in the United States.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Alchemist
02
Paulo Coelho · Religion & Spirituality
The Alchemist is a Brazilian novel first published in 1988 and translated into 80 languages, making it one of the most translated books in history.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
03
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers · Memoir
Dave Eggers's debut memoir about losing both parents to cancer within five weeks and raising his younger brother Toph while trying to start a literary magazine in San Francisco in the mid-1990s arrived in 2000 with unusual self-consciousness about its own nature.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Educated: A Memoir
04
Tara Westover · Memoir
Educated is Tara Westover's memoir about growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho and eventually earning a PhD in history from Cambridge University.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Ishmael Beah · Memoir
Ishmael Beah was twelve years old when the Sierra Leone civil war reached his village and he was separated from his family.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Farewell to Arms
06
Ernest Hemingway · Literary fiction
A Farewell to Arms is set during the First World War in northern Italy and follows Frederic Henry, an American serving as a lieutenant in the Italian ambulance corps, who falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Fine Balance
07
Rohinton Mistry · Literary fiction
A Fine Balance is set in an unnamed Indian city during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975–1977, a period of suspended democracy, forced sterilization, and slum clearances that is barely taught in the West and barely taught in India.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Little Life
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Hanya Yanagihara · Literary fiction
A Little Life follows four men from college into middle age and beyond — Willem, an actor; JB, a painter; Malcolm, an architect; and Jude, a lawyer with a past that is revealed in increasingly devastating detail as the novel progresses.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce · Literary fiction
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man traces the intellectual and spiritual development of Stephen Dedalus from early childhood to the edge of adulthood, when he leaves Ireland to pursue life as an artist.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Thousand Acres
10
Jane Smiley · Literary fiction
A Thousand Acres retells King Lear on a thousand-acre Iowa farm in the 1970s.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Visit from the Goon Squad
11
Jennifer Egan · Literary fiction
A Visit from the Goon Squad is a novel told in thirteen chapters, each from a different point of view and sometimes in a radically different form — including one chapter composed entirely as a PowerPoint presentation.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
12
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain · Literary fiction
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins where Tom Sawyer left off — Huck Finn, the outcast son of the town drunk, has been taken in and given a respectable life he doesn't want.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary →
Books like On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: quick answers
What are the best books like On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous?
The best books like On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong are Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, such as immigration and displacement, queerness and desire, mother and son.
What should I read after On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous?
A natural next read after On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover.
What books are similar to On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong?
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous centers on immigration and displacement, queerness and desire, mother and son. Books with a similar feel include Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
