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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

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Author: Junot Diaz
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$14.00~~
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Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

273 reviews
Sales Rank: 42

Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 1

ISBN: 1594483299
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781594483295
ASIN: 1594483299

Publication Date: September 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Special Purchase Limited Time Only BRAND NEW FACTORY SEALED (WE DO NOT SHIP TO HI, AK, WA, NY, KS, KY, ND)

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, September 2007: It's been 11 years since Junot Diaz's critically acclaimed story collection, Drown, landed on bookshelves and from page one of his debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, any worries of a sophomore jinx disappear. The titular Oscar is a 300-pound-plus "lovesick ghetto nerd" with zero game (except for Dungeons & Dragons) who cranks out pages of fantasy fiction with the hopes of becoming a Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. The book is also the story of a multi-generational family curse that courses through the book, leaving troubles and tragedy in its wake. This was the most dynamic, entertaining, and achingly heartfelt novel I've read in a long time. My head is still buzzing with the memory of dozens of killer passages that I dog-eared throughout the book. The rope-a-dope narrative is funny, hip, tragic, soulful, and bursting with desire. Make some room for Oscar Wao on your bookshelf--you won't be disappointed. --Brad Thomas Parsons

Product Description
The most talked aboutand praisedfirst novel of 2007, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd whofrom the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fuk�a curse that has haunted Oscars family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao<./I> opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevereand risk it allin the name of love.

Customer Reviews: Read 268 more reviews...

2 out of 5 stars

Smug swagger from BMOC January 9, 2009
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.

1 out of 5 stars

Overrated January 8, 2009
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.

5 out of 5 stars

This Book is KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF FANTASTIC! January 8, 2009
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.

3 out of 5 stars

Interesting, yet Frustrating January 7, 2009
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

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 fuk�, 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.

4 out of 5 stars

Oscar Everyman January 7, 2009
THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO can be a bit aggravating at first. Diaz rotates between English, Spanglish, Spanish, street jive, and an advanced professorial vocabulary. He also uses elaborate footnotes to explain the political situation in the Dominican Republic.

But I defy anyone to not get involved in Oscar Wao's predicament. He is a lifelong virgin who loves women. He also weighs around four hundred pounds and is a role-playing, video game addict, whose ambition is to write science fiction.

The book also includes flashbacks to his mother's and his grandfather's horrible travails during the time of dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina. His mother's father was a doctor who ran afoul of Trujillo when he made an unfortunate joke about Trujillo and bodies in the trunk of a car.

The narrator is Yunior, a former roommate of Oscar's at Rutgers, who did everything he could to help get Oscar laid. Yunior is a weightlifter who tried to help Oscar lose weight by making him run every morning. When Oscar gives up, Yunior pretty much gives up on him, although he does check in on him periodically. Yunior is also in love with Oscar's sister Lola, although he can't stay faithful to her.

Oscar is so depressed about his circumstance that he tries suicide, but his life seems to pick up when he visits the Dominican Republic with his mother. This gives us a closer look at the island and man's inhumanity to man. We also learn a bit more about Oscar's family background.

You could argue that this book is a romance of sorts. When Oscar falls in love, he falls hard, and he's willing to risk his life, more than once, for the woman he loves. I think we all have a little bit of Oscar within ourselves. Some of us are fat, others too skinny, others not good at sports. Even the seemingly gifted are self-conscious about something. Diaz also does strong women really well. Lola, Oscar's sister; his mother, Beli; La Inca, his mother's adopted mother, and even Ybon, the prostitute he falls in love with are all well-rounded, true-to life characters.

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