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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Honestly this was just too much
Too dark, too bleak, and too depressing
I just could not do it right now
Too dark, too bleak, and too depressing
I just could not do it right now
Everyone fished that this was the most beautiful book so I had to read it. It was alright.
I loved the relationships in this book—so rich, layered, and real. Hai and his diverse, flawed, yet dependable co-workers. Hai and his neurodiverse cousin. Hai and Grazinah.
I’m always on the lookout for positive portrayals of intergenerational social dynamics and these were raw and authentic. Like all the relationships in this book, Hai himself was both flawed and immature, yet also complex and surprisingly wise. A beautifully honest portrait of real life.
I’m always on the lookout for positive portrayals of intergenerational social dynamics and these were raw and authentic. Like all the relationships in this book, Hai himself was both flawed and immature, yet also complex and surprisingly wise. A beautifully honest portrait of real life.
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is unrelentingly bleak, pointless and miserable. I have no idea why a writer as talented at writing beautiful prose as Ocean Vuong would create something so utterly gut-wrenchingly despairing and grim. I nearly quit this book halfway through and I should have trusted my instincts and dnfed.
When Hai, a queer Vietnamese American man, first meets Grazina, an elderly woman with dementia, he’s standing on a bridge, preparing to end his life. That moment—where despair and confusion meet something startlingly human—is the beginning of a relationship that feels both improbable and utterly essential.
Their connection is tender, strange, and beautifully raw. As someone who cared for my own grandmother during her decline with dementia, I found the portrayal of Grazina incredibly moving. Vuong doesn’t sentimentalize dementia—he honors its heartbreak…its sudden moments of lucidity, the grief threaded through even the most ordinary interactions. In caring for her, Hai finds not just purpose, but a kind of mirrored vulnerability that allows both of them to be seen.
Vuong’s prose reads like poetry—spare, sharp, and emotionally resonant. His portrait of middle America is both quiet and biting, a backdrop to lives that are often invisible but deeply felt. This is a novel about survival, chosen connection, and the small, strange mercies that can keep us tethered to the world.
What moved me most was the way Hai and Grazina hold space for each other—across generations, across trauma—offering moments of clarity and connection in the midst of their respective unraveling. The Emperor of Gladness is a quiet, powerful book that left me feeling both wrecked and grateful.
Their connection is tender, strange, and beautifully raw. As someone who cared for my own grandmother during her decline with dementia, I found the portrayal of Grazina incredibly moving. Vuong doesn’t sentimentalize dementia—he honors its heartbreak…its sudden moments of lucidity, the grief threaded through even the most ordinary interactions. In caring for her, Hai finds not just purpose, but a kind of mirrored vulnerability that allows both of them to be seen.
Vuong’s prose reads like poetry—spare, sharp, and emotionally resonant. His portrait of middle America is both quiet and biting, a backdrop to lives that are often invisible but deeply felt. This is a novel about survival, chosen connection, and the small, strange mercies that can keep us tethered to the world.
What moved me most was the way Hai and Grazina hold space for each other—across generations, across trauma—offering moments of clarity and connection in the midst of their respective unraveling. The Emperor of Gladness is a quiet, powerful book that left me feeling both wrecked and grateful.