The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in Around the Year in 52 Books

Oct 17, 2017 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was amazing

Shelves: pulitzer-winner, broken, lotsa-buzz, 100-best-of-21st-c, only-reading-because-of-the-buzz, literary-schmiterary, audio, nj, fiction, best-audiobooks

She was about to say something, and I was waiting for whatever she was going to tell me. I was waiting to begin.

This was so much MORE than I expected!! So much more wonderful! So much more story! So much more interesting! This is a very chatty book, the narrator is telling you the story, and it lends itself perfectly to audiobook format (I listened to the version read by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Karen Olivo)

I am so glad I finally gave this book a chance. I'd had Diaz (wrongly) pegged as "a write

She was about to say something, and I was waiting for whatever she was going to tell me. I was waiting to begin.

This was so much MORE than I expected!! So much more wonderful! So much more story! So much more interesting! This is a very chatty book, the narrator is telling you the story, and it lends itself perfectly to audiobook format (I listened to the version read by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Karen Olivo)

I am so glad I finally gave this book a chance. I'd had Diaz (wrongly) pegged as "a writer of dick lit." I'd been avoiding this book for years, because I didn't think I wanted to read a book about an overweight man who objectifies women but can't get their attention. I mean, MRAs and incels and MGTOWs get enough press as it is, I didn't want to invite them into my leisure time also. But this book isn't at all what I thought it would be. Diaz is sympathetic to Oscar, but also fully aware. Oscar may be a sexist loser (and he's not, not really), and Yunior may be a player, but Diaz is not. And this book is NOT just about Oscar. How did I not know this?? Sections alternate between Oscar, his sister Lola, their mother Beli, their grandmother "La Inca," and their grandfather. It is, literally, a multi-generational family saga. It also bounces around in time quite a bit.

This was just so powerful, full of layers upon layers of ... life. I don't really have the right words to describe why I loved this so much.

I wanted more. I wanted to know more about Beli, to learn how she became so bitter, and mostly I wanted more Lola. Lola was the haunting heart of this story.

There are a lot of pop-culture references, and I'm the right generation, and I dig sci-fi, but I'm not Latinx, and I'm not nearly nerdy enough, so I missed most of them. That's okay. There is also a lot of Spanish. I know enough Spanish that I could understand about a third of it, and figure out another third from context, and just let the rest go as "atmosphere." (Because I'm pretty sure I don't need to know exactly what "Oye, parigüayo, y qué pasó con esa esposa tuya? Gordo, no me digas que tú todavía tienes hambre?" means in order to get the gist that she's chatting slangily with customers in the restaurant.) But I can see that this might be frustrating or off-putting if you understand no Spanish at all. If you must know all the references, someone has helpfully created annotations: The Annotated Oscar Wao

Final note: I listened to the audiobook (which was fantastic!), and then borrowed the e-book to check some details, and I noticed Diaz is one of "those" authors who doesn't use quotation marks. I hate that! That probably would have really bugged me A LOT if I had been reading this book instead of listening to it. ...more

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Apr 07, 2022 Ana rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2022, overdrive, magical-realism, 2022-popsugar, 2022-april

This was interesting. I liked the glimpses of New Jersey and I liked the small bits of magic. This was a rough book at times. Also, the footnotes were out of order in the back of the epub version and that bugged me.

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Sep 07, 2013 Cat rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, pulitzer-prize-winners

I liked that he didn't give the reader context for all the Spanish; I liked the extra responsibility put on the reader. The mythic allusions and intertwining of Dominican history and pop culture created a really unique voice. However, for some reason I never really cared about the characters, perhaps because of the voice; something about it put me off. ...more

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Nov 16, 2018 Ann rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018-aty-52

What a fun ride. I wish someone would explain to me all the Dominican and NJ inside jokes since I already got the LOTR and Dune references. Junot's writing compelled me past incomprehensible Spanish expressions and horrible government corruption and abuses. ...more

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Apr 07, 2008 martha rated it liked it

Shelves: kindle, year-2013

While I liked this just fine, I'm really sad I didn't love this as much as everyone else. Maybe it had just been overhyped to me. Or the fact that I put it down in the middle for about 4 months probably didn't help either. ...more

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Sep 04, 2007 Hilary rated it really liked it

Shelves: novels, recognized_literary_merit, contemporary_realism

At first the stylized prose turned me off, but 40 pages into it I'm enjoying it more.

I found it a little hard to get through in places, but ultimately I enjoyed it. Wish I knew more Spanish! ...more

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