The Emperor of Gladness

by Ocean Vuong ★★★☆☆

The Emperor of Gladness was broadly billed as a heartfelt novel centered on people who live largely unseen in society. Amazon made it their #4 book of 2025. Oprah added it to her Book Club. Based on all of that, it's a must-read, right? And so I picked it up...months ago. I tore through a plethora of other books while inching my way through these 409 pages. When I finally finished, I delayed writing this review until I absolutely had to.

All of this procrastination is, frankly, foreshadowing. Every time you read "Emperor of Gladness", please hear "Emperor of Sadness" in your head. The “Gladness” in the title technically refers to the fictional post‑industrial town of East Gladness, CT, where the book is set. Thank goodness author Ocean Vuong made that choice, because otherwise it would be the most misleading title in history. Sadness is the truer theme, because this book is a study in bleakness.

The novel opens with nineteen‑year‑old Hai, the son of Vietnamese immigrants, standing on a bridge contemplating ending his life. He’s interrupted by Grazina, an elderly Lithuanian woman living alone in a house on the river.

Hai carries the weight of drug abuse, poverty, and unmet expectations. That morning, he’d said goodbye to his mother at the bus station, letting her believe he was leaving to start a promising new life—one he entirely invented. In reality, he has nowhere to go and no one to support him.

Grazina is similarly adrift, living alone as she slips deeper into dementia, often believing she’s reliving her childhood during World War II. Her nearby family rarely visits and seems more interested in putting her in a home than understanding what she truly needs.

Hai and Grazina form an unlikely but necessary bond. He moves in, helping her stay in her home while they both battle their daily demons. Along the way, we meet other vivid characters struggling against their circumstances: Hai’s autistic cousin Sony, obsessed with the Civil War and instrumental in helping Hai find work; and BJ (“Big Jean”), the manager at the Home Market restaurant where Hai and Sony work, who dreams of becoming a successful amateur wrestler. Each character is fighting upstream against expectations and the harshness of their lives.

This was a novel I had to work through. The character development is rich and the writing often poetic, but I did not enjoy the experience. The lowest point for me was the chapter where Hai and his coworkers take a one‑day job at a pig slaughterhouse. Animal lovers: consider this your trigger warning—skip that chapter if you can.

While I learned a great deal about these characters and the challenges they face, I found myself simply wanting the book to end. Even the conclusion felt unsatisfying in its ambiguity. The scope and ambition are undeniable, and the writing is strong, but I struggle to think of who I would recommend it to.

For writing alone, it deserves four stars. But the unrelenting "Emperor of Sadness" tone brings it down to three for me.

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Quick Facts

• Title: The Emperor of Gladness

• Author: Ocean Vuong

• Publisher: Penguin Press

• Release Date: May 13, 2025

• Format: Ebook

• ISBN-13: 978-0593831885

• Pages: 409