Rating  - Smug swagger from BMOC
Oscar Wao is well-written, but the voice the author uses is so smug, so full of machismo college-boy swagger, and so completely disrespectful of women, I found it very difficult to continue reading. Even in the end, when the narrator seems to have grown up some, he still refers to his spouse as "the wifey". Is the point of the book to show that Dominicans are disrespectful of women? If not, what is the point - what could ever be the point of reinforcing such negative stereotypes? Are we supposed to identify with a man so full of himself? Ugh. The story wouldn't have suffered one iota if the machismo in the author's voice could've been turned down about 10 notches. I have NO idea why this book won the Pulitzer Prize.
Rating  - Overrated
This book was recommended by several people and I read great things about it online. However, I felt it was incredibly overrated and no where near the previous Pulitzer Prize winner (The Road). It was painful to get through. The lack of Spanish translations and long pointless footnotes drove me nuts.
Rating  - This Book is KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF FANTASTIC!
For me, Pulitzer Prize Winners are hit or miss. Oscar Wao is a bullseye. I loved everything about it. I read it in two days because I could not put it down. After almost a month, the story still lingers with me and I think about it every day and wish that every book I read bolled me over like TBWLOOW.
The story follows Dominican loser Oscar De Leon through his childhood and early adulthood. He is a sci-fi, fantasy, dungeons and dragons overweight loveable loser who has many unrequited "crushes" on girls. Oscar is derided by all but a sparse handful of family members. Although Oscar is the guidepost in the novel, the story is also almost equally about his Dominican mother, grandmother, and sister, and how their characters were shaped by their Dominican roots ripped up and brutalized by the evil dicator Trujillo. Telling each character's story forms a stacking cups effect of stories atop and within each other. Oscar, Lola, LaInca, Belicia, and Yunior are absolutely pitch perfect.
TBWLOOW was tender, brutal, and hilarious in equal measure. Junot Diaz's use of footnotes was unique and to me added well to the story in a shifting brain back and forth sort of way that I enjoyed. His writing is phenomenal. I am a good Spanish speaker so did not mind the extensive use of Spanglish and Spanish phrases. For those with little familiarity in Spanish, though, I could see how this might be a drawback, although I think you can still get the gist from the context.
Overall, one of the best books I have read in a really long time. I never reread the same book twice, but now I just might have to. TBWLOOW was a tragic delight of amazing proportions. Don't let any naysayers fool you otherwise.
Rating  - Interesting, yet Frustrating
The Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao follows the life of a nerdy young man living in New York. Oscar is a comic book-loving overweight kid who is obsessed with girls, but lacks any kind of social skills to actually form a relationship. Even worse, he is of Dominican heritage, and has a reputation to live up to. Also, his family is haunted by a fukú, or curse, resulting from his mother's interactions with the former dictator of the Dominican Republic. The narration is done by different characters in different parts, including Oscar's college roommate Yunior and his sister Lola.
Oscar Wao was a very frustrating book for me to read due to its uneven pacing. While some parts were very interesting, others seemed to drag on forever. As I was reading, I looked up some reviews to determine whether it would get better, and one said that the action picked up after page 150, which was true. However, from about page 75 to page 150, I had to struggle to push myself through.
Another thing that hindered my enjoyment of the book was the pervasive inclusion of Spanish phrases, especially slang. I am far from fluent in Spanish, but have some basic competence; however, many phrases were outside my level of comprehension. As I did not feel like sitting at my computer looking up phrases while I was reading, I just did the best I could within the context of the story.
The part of the story I enjoyed the most was the section about Oscar's mother, Belicia, during her youth. First and foremost, it was very interesting to read about the Dominican history that was the backdrop to her youth. I had no idea of the atrocities committed by their dictator, Trujillo. I also enjoyed the descriptions of the island, as I knew little about it except its history as a hotbed for producing Major League Baseball players.
The other thing I enjoyed about the story was the characters. While the plot sometimes seemed muddled, the characters were very distinctive. Oscar's mother was very negative, and her history explained why she ended up this way. Her two kids, Lola and Oscar, were opposites of each other, but were able to develop a strong bond. I wanted to follow these characters, but would have preferred to do so in an easier to digest manner.
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