We unanimously liked this book in our club. Ocean Vuong delves into the deeper question of life in America and about questions of kindness and belonging. He developes characters that you grow to love, and his descriptions of them go well beyond surface evalutations. The novel explores the value of kindness without reward, the families we create and life in America when you are in the working class or on the margins of society. Is the goal of life happiness or is it to be "okay". How do you define okay? These are just of the few of the discussion questions we covered. The writing is beautiful but also insightful. There are so many themes that we all felt we could discuss this for much longer.