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What Members Thought
This book is a true wonder and treasure, the very definition of a 5 star read. I'm placing it in the exhalted position of one of my 3 favorite books of all time, sitting alongside The World According to Garp and Love in the Time of Cholera. It is a magnificent chronicle of a Dominican-American family and the fuku that haunts them throughout generations, with its main focus on poor Oscar, a heavyset nerd personified in eternal search for love, preferably the variety that is accompanied by sex. Th
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Stronger than DROWN, OSCAR WAO is an odd melange of family saga, bildungsroman, contemporary realistic fiction, and history. Yeah, it has too much Spanish (for gringo readers) and too many footnotes (for anyone other than Dr. Scholls), but it wins you over, page by page, as you watch the horror of a grotesquely obese kid trying to win love (and, OK, lust) in a world that has little use for fatties. OK, it doesn't help that he's a sci-fi nerd to boot, and has a vocabulary that would make SAT blus
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Before I read this book, I thought it might be cute. Or something. The description pitches it as a story about an "overweight ghetto nerd." But no. This book is hard-hitting--violent and disturbing. For sure. It's also engrossing, really well written, and a great, epic story. The parts with Lola and Beli I liked particularly. I liked the history, I liked the supernatural elements. This is a book I would reread and I can imagine getting a lot more out of it the second time around.
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I really liked this book, almost gave it 5 stars,if I continue to think about it as much, I will change to 5 stars. By far the best book I read in '08.
Learned lots about the Dominican Republic,. Remembered names from my ancient past like Trujillo (what a monster, may have made Papa and Baby Doc look almost benevoent).
There was lots of myth,fantasy, and superstition woven into the story.Also a lot of spanish that sometimes threw me off the story, but, that usually added to it (no I don't speak or ...more
Learned lots about the Dominican Republic,. Remembered names from my ancient past like Trujillo (what a monster, may have made Papa and Baby Doc look almost benevoent).
There was lots of myth,fantasy, and superstition woven into the story.Also a lot of spanish that sometimes threw me off the story, but, that usually added to it (no I don't speak or ...more
This story bounces across the pages. - A novel about the imigrant experience in America, mixing pop culture and politics.
Readersof this book would benefit by having a basic knowledge of the history of the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic (even with Diaz's excellent footnotes) and must know some Spanish or have access to Wordreference while reading this. Essentially, it is the story of an overweight DR nerd who cannot get laid (Oscar who is nicknamed Wao because the cruel kids in his neighborhood think of him like Oscar Wilde.) But it is so much more than that. It would also help having an understanding of
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A great book. Oscar is a wonderful modern tragic hero. The story is told from the very interesting viewpoint of his college room-mate and sister's unfaithful boyfriend. Oscar's doomed life parallels that of his hapless country and it's people who's spirit seems to endure despite generations of brutality at the hands of its leaders. The theme of fate ( Fuku) runs through it as each of its characters tries to escape what seems to be their inevitable fate. Oscar on the other hand rises to his fate
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Diaz is an exciting new voice in literature. His prose jumps off the page with its energy. I just wish I knew Spanish -- lots of dialogue in Spanish but you can usually get the drift.
I wanted to love this book, but it did not happen... I kept searching for the missing element that would have made me enjoy this book better, but came to the conclusion that it was the overly excess of practically everything that finally tired me of it. It was just too much: too much violence, too much stereotyping, too much Spanish, too much info in the footnotes....
It could be a case of the wrong book at the wrong time, as I am usually drawn to books with an experimental quality but, in any ca ...more
It could be a case of the wrong book at the wrong time, as I am usually drawn to books with an experimental quality but, in any ca ...more
Funny, smart, and educational, seeing as I know next to nothing about Dominican history. Diaz captures the old country/new country tension perfectly, and Oscar is a great beta-male hero.
I'm constantly coming back to this book. I love its underlying theme of the perpetuating curse, the power of the stories (and histories) we tell ourselves.
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It's a tragedy. I don't know how I could've thought it was anything else. It's a tough read, but in that way that sticks with you.
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Apr 08, 2008
tee
rated it
did not like it
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review of another edition
Shelves:
i-own,
need-to-finish
Nov 23, 2008
Jenn
marked it as to-read
Mar 24, 2009
Peze
marked it as to-read
Apr 12, 2009
Rhiannon
marked it as to-read
Apr 07, 2010
Val
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
couldn-t-finish-will-try-again
Feb 08, 2011
Celeste
marked it as to-read
