In many ways the book was the story of the misery which extends through generations once instigated, in this case by violent dictatorship. It was also the story of the struggle to find home and love once it's been lost. That struggle is pursued in various different ways by different characters, Oscar being the most direct. It was written in a very colloquial English/Spanish. An excellent book with a story that captured my interest. ( )

[The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao], by Junot Diaz.

So, I finally finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The Prologue was off-putting. All that tiny print about people I have never heard of (which should have been educational, but didn't really sink in...) and Spanish phrases thrown in (huh?) everywhere. This chica doesn’t ablo and I felt a lot of key points were made in Spanish and I missed them all! The story is weird and depressing, and told in three voices, no four -- I forgot the unidentified Prologue voice. Okay, well it is identified, but only much later. Did I learn anything about the Dominican Republic during this time period? Yes, but I would have rather read a textbook. The only reason I finished the darn thing was so I wouldn’t be a slacker in my book group. STOP. Skip the next paragraph if you don’t want the ending spoiled.

The characters all have tragic lives. There’s no real redemption at the end. Oscar finally finds “true love” and then dies for it. On second thought, it’s not really a spoiler: Oscar has a “Brief Wondrous Life,” remember? It says so in the title.

Spoiler over…There’s lots of crude language. The prominent family in the story is haunted by a fukú, which I guess means they are cursed, or fu**ed as the case may be. That’s how I felt having to read this book. Put me in a right bad mood. Normally I only give a one-star for books I don’t finish, and I did actually finish this, but it still gets only one star because I was so irritated by it. ( )

heartbreaking book. the sadness just oozed off the pages. ( )

When I began reading this I didn't expect to finish it. The angst of a teenage boy, told in crude language and sprinkled liberally with Spanish slang and idioms, didn't appeal to me at all. However, since it won a Pulitzer and has been widely praised I decided to read a few chapters before closing it, and I'm so glad I did.

It's weird to say this in light of what I wrote above, but this is one beautifully written book. The language is lilting, and the dialogue so natural the characters jump out at the reader. It's easy to imagine this read aloud. The time jumps are a little hard to follow, probably because I know little of Dominican history. Otherwise, my overall reaction: WOW! ( )

Did I expect this novel to be all tetas and culos (t&a) spiced with intergalactic fanboy delusions? Not once. Did I really think I would break my heart for our ill-fated avenger or his grimy spangloid narrator? Never. But in the end, I was wrong.

The Brief Wondrous Life or Oscar Wao was just what I needed right about now: a dirty, honest, modern work of mystic realism which is never quite mystic and never quite real. This is not the dreamy, semi-tragic novela of the MR genre--this is nasty and sweaty...a book which clings to your skin in a hazy film and is not beautiful because it is beautiful, but beautiful because it never once attempts to be. There are no supernatural occurances in this story, yet the sheer outlandishness of it all shocks and awes so much more. Written in an effortless spanglish prose which drips of the tongue in salty heaves, with a gift for gazing beyond the muck of living to see what is truly phenomenal, this book is a present, a gift, un regalo for any who just want to say, "wow". ( )