MixedThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)In general, there is a turn away from the other and towards the self in Vuong’s new book, which loosens its connection to the world...Such self-pity is galling when the author is enjoying popular and critical success ... The effect this has on the poetry is detrimental: not only does Vuong’s imagery lose precision, but the poems lose their shape and definition ... Where the book focuses on people other than the poet, as in a poem about his partner’s Russian Jewish grandmother and another about a seven-year-old cousin, it is genuinely moving. But even here there are slip-ups.
