Reviews with content warning for Drug abuse - De keizer van Gladness

Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

De keizer van Gladness by Ocean Vuong

75 reviews

abidoodle's review against another edition

3.0

emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is a solid book, though I struggled to get through it at times. I think the characters are lovely, and I even laughed out loud during certain parts. And I found some of the implicit reflections on life and different aspects of it quite profound. But I think what I struggled most with it was the narration - I couldn’t tell if it was Hai’s third person narration or an omniscient third, or if it was switching between the two, and sometimes I didn’t like how the narration was sometimes poetic just for the sake of it, when it didn’t always have to be. Overall the writing was beautiful, but I felt sometimes it was that way just to be that way but it actually took away from the flow of the story instead of adding to it. Again, overall a really beautiful and profound story with such individual and unique characters with stories I will probably continue to think about.

Content Warnings

1umbrella1's review against another edition

4.75

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

tenderbench's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

vavocado's review against another edition

4.25

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

nerdese's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Ocean's work is such a gift. I had the privilege of attending a launch event for this book and something he said will stick with me for a long time. In describing the inspiration behind Home Market at the characters who inhabit it, he said: "Boston Market is a sonnet." So much of what is really brilliant about this book is the quiet poetry of this type of service, the people who come day in, day out, who create an incredibly unique bond both in the monotony and the relentlessness of the work. These are workers that are so often marginalized and overlooked, but are fixtures of many towns like East Gladness. They are inextricable from that fabric and motion of those towns, and each have their own private battles. I think those scenes, those bonds, are where this novel is the strongest and most unique, and I love that it gives them a voice.

Something else Vuong said in the same conversation that in media and in his own work, he is often wants to see "transformation without change." That feels like a very apt descriptor for this novel, where there is dramatic transformation — most notably within Hai — when it may appear that from the outside, he is still in the same place he was. You can really feel how much of his own experience Vuong has imbued into Hai's relationship with Grazina (which he has described in interviews about her real-life counterpart) and how those brief flashes of life can irrevocably transform us, even if our station in life hasn't changed.

This novel has all the startlingly poetic descriptions of the mundane that I've come to love about Vuong's work. It's slowly placed, and while I didn't tear through it with quite as much gusto as I expected given how excited I was to read it, this may be a novel best savored slowly.

Content Warnings

bsdeab's review against another edition

4.75

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

oh my god ocean vuong. he said in an interview that writers need to love the world, and reading this book makes it abundantly clear what he meant. everything—the beautiful and the ugly—is portrayed with the love of an old friend.
on a separate and unexpected note, i expected to be depressed from beginning to end while reading this but i actually cackled out loud several times. so hilarious and sharp.

Content Warnings

gayemosasuke's review against another edition

5.0

funny reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Vuong is such a master at making the mundane aspects of small town America beautiful without romanticizing them. You feel deeply for each character as they struggle through life, but the moments they are together make it all worth it. I'll be forever envious of his prose--the way he wraps each sentence lovingly in metaphor makes the book feel so lush.

Content Warnings