A review by undercoverreads
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong

3.0

This book held so much promise and I was hoping to love it. What drew me was the writing which is so beautiful. However, I need more than beautiful writing to sustain my interest for 400 pages. Sadly, I found the book to be going nowhere and it was a very close DNF for me. I persevered until the very last page in the hope that it would “redeem itself” and SOMEthing would happen. Sadly this was not the case. I found the book to be very repetitive and the ending was flat and disappointing. I got the impression that writing this book was like therapy for the author, reliving a special relationship. The only reason why I rated this book, rather begrudgingly I must add, 3 stars is because the writing is beautiful.