The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

My biggest regret with this book is not knowing a lick of Spanish. The linguistic nerd in me wanted to figure out what all of the Spanish/Dominican slang phrases meant while the reader waited, increasingly impatient to get on with the story.

While I found it very difficult to empathize with any of the characters in this book, and, at times, even hard to sympathize with some of them, Diaz did a really good job of keeping my attention the entire time; I literally missed my bus stop on the way to work one morning (though how much of that was the book versus how early it was in the morning is debatable). I liked his choice of narrator. Yunior was kind of an asshole, but his honesty about his personal dishonesty turns him into a believable, reliable narrator. The dichotomy between player and nerd-boy made him almost endearing (*almost* -- he was still an asshole).

This book totally toyed with my emotions. Parts of it made me absolutely hate all males while others made me think that girls are some of the dumbest creatures on the planet. I got angry, frustrated, I pitied, and loved pretty much every bit of it (I really like when books make me angry -- for the right reasons). Description ranged from highly colloquial/conversational to deeply moving and descriptive.

There's a good bit of historical and geek-tastic references throughout, usually pretty well described in the footnotes for the "layperson." The slight nod to magical realism was easily digestible and even welcome (hard to do! my suspension of disbelief is rare with grown-up books) and I had fun with the inter-story parallels.

I think the end dragged on a tiny smidge bit, and there was something that was a little off/disappointing in it (though I can't figure out what, so it may have just been the mood I was in that night when I read it), but all in all I would confidently recommend this book to anyone who's looking for something distinctly different from most other literary fiction.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the Pulitzer Prizewinning debut novel by Junot Diaz.

Between Shades of Gray

I should probably wait until this book is actually released before I rant and rave about how wonderful it is, but I read it back in September or early October, I think, and it doesn't come out until March and I just can't wait that long.
In history classes across the United States Hitler's Holocaust often overshadows that of Stalin's killing of between 3- and 60 million people during his rule of the USSR. Some died in Gulags, some died on their way to Gulags, some were shot without the chance to survive a Gulag, all were charged with crimes against the state-- "counterrevolutionary activities" ranging from being active members of political parties to being an accomplice by not informing the state of a known criminal.
In Between Shades of Grey, Lina -- the main character, a Lithuanian -- is fifteen when she and her family are arrested because her father is a professor. They are taken at night to trains, shipped like cattle to their next destination. The rest of the book is largely Lina grappling with the horrors permitted by the state under Stalin's rule.
Ruta Sepetys brings each of her characters to life through her descriptions. Her writing is beautifully human despite the inhumanity Lina encounters. She fleshes out other prisoners and the guards; their greed and anger, their fear and guilt, and, for some, their selflessness, they're all mixed together to form as complete and real people as I've seen on paper.
The book begins with a provocative statement: "They took me in my nightgown." This simple sentence is a jarring juxtaposition of the distress and invasion of privacy, of not being safe in the most comfortable and intimate of settings. From here, the atrocities people are capable of tug at heartstrings and yank tears out of the driest eyes (like mine).
Hope is a large part of Lina's story, as it is in most extreme situations that test the human condition. Lina holds most to a need to tell what happened to her and the others with her, but also to family and (remember, she's 15 when we meet her, it's inevitable) to first love-- which keep her going while those around her destroy themselves with despair.
This is certainly one of the best books I've read recently, and definitely one of the best teen books I've ever read. Sepetys is certainly successful in her goal of putting a few faces to the millions lost to Stalinism.

Between Shades of Gray is out March 22, 2011.