Review: The Emperor of Gladness, by Ocean Vuong

Title: The Emperor of Gladness

Author: Ocean Vuong

Publisher: Jonathan Cape

Genre: Contemporary/Literary

Date of Publication: May 13, 2025

Number of Pages: 402

See it on Goodreads: The Emperor of Gladness

Summary

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

Review - Soft, simple people, that live only once

When I say that The Emperor of Gladness was my most anticipated book release of the year, it is probably an understatement. Even since reading On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, I have been constantly searching for a book that would make me feel the same way. That book scratched an itch like none other. So, when I heard that Ocean Vuong would be releasing a new novel, I was both excited and anxious that it might not live up to his debut novel. Turns out that I needn't worry - this is THE book of the year for me. How can it not, when the opening sentence is "The hardest thing in the world is to live only once"?

In Emperor of Gladness, we are following Hai in a time in his life when he feels lost. This is when he meets Grazina, an old Lithuanian lady that prevents him from jumping off a bridge, and offers him a place to stay. To support them both, Hai finds a job at HomeMarket, a fast food place, where he meets other people with their struggles and passions, just like him. The book covers almost a year in Hai's life, and it's divided by seasons. 

I wouldn't say that this is a plot heavy book, but it is certainly more than On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. But as you can imagine, it shines more when it comes to its characters and the character dynamics. In this novel, we have a found family theme, which when done right is one of my favourites. And, by the end (the final scene is a great example of that), I could feel the bond between these characters, all so different from one another. 

And there is so much tenderness in this book. Hai, Grazina, Sony, even Maureen, BJ, Russia, and Wayne. They are all characters that are missing something, but they are depicted with such humanity and tenderness. I could recognize their defects, but I felt deeply for them despite those. To quote directly from the book, in one scene Sony says "Sometimes I want to think about being good. But it doesn't choose me. It just doesn't. I'm no good at goodness".

This book touches many different things, working minimum wage in customer service, healing from family trauma, living in the margins, addiction, losing yourself, and losing the people you love the most. But, what touched me the most, was Grazina's storyline. When Hai meets her, she already has dementia. As time goes by, she gradually gets worse. These scenes, where Hai pretends to be Sergeant Pepper while Grazina thinks that she's back in her youth, trying to reach safety, were some of the most touching ones in the book. On top of that though, this storyline felt the most personal to me because my own grandmother has dementia. So, when Grazina asks, "But am I still me if I don't remember who I was?" touched something in me. 

When it comes to Ocean Vuong's writing, I knew what to expect. Since I'd loved his writing on On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, I didn't have any doubts that it would still be beautiful and lyrical. Yet, it still managed to surprise me. One criticism I often read about his debut novel is that it is pretentious, and I can understand why would someone feel this way, even though I don't see it that. In this book though, the writing is lyrical and simple at the same time - Ocean Vuong finds the right words so that the prose goes straight to your heart. Furthermore, in The Emperor of Gladness, I annotated whole scenes because they were so beautifully written.

However, what I really want to say about The Emperor of Gladness is that it was the best experience I've had with a book in a long while. While I was reading it, I felt moved, I cried, and I laughed out loud. I was looking forward to the morning when I'd usually read this, because I wanted to find out what would happen to these characters. And most importantly, I didn't want to read it quickly - I wanted to savour each page, and make the reading experience last for as much as possible. When I finished it, I started crying and remained in my seat, looking at nothing for 5 minutes straight. I'm already thinking of rereading it.

All in all, The Emperor of Gladness is a 6* book for me. I realize that I might be a bit biased, but I don't care - no other book has managed to make me feel so many things this year (or maybe the last couple of years). Suffice to say that I would readily recommend it to everyone. And as Grazina says, "To be alive and try to be a decent person, and not turn it into something big or grant, that's the hardest thing of all".

Read more of my reviews here.