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.