Ayo’s Reviews > The Emperor of Gladness > Status Update

Dumpster???

You got to be kidding me!!! 😆

I hate this book 🤣🤣🤣

“The debris of her living somehow made her absence feel absolute and stifling. She was everywhere and no where at once.”


Even though I don’t think the storytelling is fully well-executed, the book is filled with genuinely beautiful moments of writing.😍

That said, Vuong sometimes tries a little too hard to sound profound - certain sentences made me pause and think, say what now? 🤣

“. . .or whether they knew the FDA allowed mashed potatoes to contain up to 2% rat poop and up to 3.5% insect fragments.”

Ocean PLEASE!!! 🤣😭😆

“You gotta start at the asshole of things before you can to the heart.”

I both get and don’t get the Vuong hype.

His writing is undeniably beautiful,lyrical and soulful - this book reads like a long song.He writes people well -and that requires empathy and care.😍

But so far, the story itself isn’t compelling to me.The constant shifts in poetry and perspective distract from any narrative momentum.😩

“You need money to do anything you know?

My husband’s dead for 5 years now and I still owe for his 2 hour funeral.

Even dying cost money. It can cost more than living”

😅

“It’s a town where high school kids having no where to go on Friday nights, park their step father’s trucks in the unlit edges of the Walmart parking lot, drinking Smirnoffs out of Poland spring bottles and blasting Weezer and lil Wayne until they look down one night and find a baby in their arms and realize they are 30 something . . .”

❤️😍🥰