Book Review: "The Good Parts" by Evann Normandin

This book was a sad one. There are bright spots, certainly, and a dash of hopefulness, but I found this to be an emotionally heavy book. That being said, however, it’s so beautifully written.

Rose and Landon meet the first night they’re both in college. Both feel awkward at times, which is what draws them together, but with Landon, Rose feels like she can step out of her shell every once in a while. Landon falls quickly for Rose, and can think of nowhere else he’d rather be than with her.

They get married and build a life together. For a while things are wonderful. But when tragedy strikes, it destroys them both, and Rose leaves. Landon has faith that she’ll return, but then one day he gets a letter in which he learns she has taken a memory-erasing pill and will no longer remember him or their life together.

Devastated, Landon travels to Edinburgh, where Rose is living her new life. He believes that if she fell in love with him once, she can do it again. But Landon’s reappearance triggers memories that Rose should have forgotten, and these memories prove physically harmful to her. Can he let her go in order to save her life?

There are a lot of sad moments in the story. Rose isn’t the most sympathetic character all the time, although her grief is justified. And while Landon certainly has his quirks, his devotion to Rose is never in question.

The book has an interesting narrative structure: Rose’s story starts at the beginning while Landon’s starts in the present. There are lots of messages to take from this book and I’ll be thinking about this for a long while. This really was a spectacular debut!

Book Review: "The Emperor of Gladness" by Ocean Vuong

I had wanted to read this when it came out last year but never got around to it. It really was as beautifully written as I expected it to me, with a quiet, astonishing power.

Nineteen-year-old Hai is fresh out of rehab for an opioid addiction. He’s estranged from his mother—well, he’s been lying to her—and he feels like his life isn’t worth living. As he readies himself to jump off a bridge, he is stopped by the voice of a stranger.

The voice belongs to Grazina, an 80-year-old widow suffering from dementia. Somehow she is able to convince Hai to become her caregiver, a job he surprisingly comes to enjoy. The two connect over shared loneliness and build an unlikely bond, which changes both of them.

The book takes place in East Gladness, Connecticut, during the 2009 recession. It is a bleak time and people are doing everything they can to hang on. Hai takes a job at a fast food restaurant. He unexpectedly bonds with a group of coworkers, each of whom is a fractured piece of the whole that forms when they come together.

This is a story about chosen family, and how they make us think of our lives in a different way than we have been. There are moments of great emotion, heartbreak, humor, and grace.

I really enjoyed Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, but I found this book to be more accessible. His prose is truly luminous—the descriptions he uses made me gasp at times. I’m very much looking forward to whatever he does next!