shipLiveblogging while reading The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, a thread.
”We pay taxes on every check to stand on the sinking banks of a river that becomes the morgue of our dreams.”
(I’m on page two and already reaching for the highlighter.)
”—the body was just this stupid little shovel we use to dig through the hours only to end up surrounded by more empty space than we know what to do with.”
”He was only alive inside pieces of mistakes that gravity had collected into a life raft called the present.”
Liked the start, felt increasingly nauseous toward the end. Doesn't mean the book was bad, it just wasn't for me.
voodoocactus's review of The Emperor of Gladness
3/5: Wow. Um. Okay. Let’s start with that while the language itself is often breathtakingly beautiful, this isn’t exactly a pleasant book to read. This deals heavily with substance abuse, OD, suicidal thoughts, mental illness, dementia, poverty, animal cruelty, medical neglect, and estranged famlies. Yes, there’s hope. Yes, there’s love and families of choice and deep, meaningful friendship, but there’s also tangible stench of human waste, fast food grease, alcohol, and mold. I couldn’t have read this five years ago when my dad was losing himself to Alzheimer’s. And I sure as fuck couldn’t ha...