How long does it take to read The Emperor of Gladness?
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong takes about 7 hours 38 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 7 hours 38 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2025. 416 pages, about 114,400 words.
16 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 12 hours 43 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 7 hours 38 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 46 minutes |
The page count is the median across 7 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
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.
Subjects: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Adult
