The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"It's never the changes we want that change everything." -Junot Diaz-

In the past few months, I have had no interest in reading while at home. Luckily, I get a little time at work to read almost every day so I try to zoom through books during those brief periods. I was really looking forward to reading Oscar Wao as I had heard nothing but great things. Junot Diaz won numerous awards for it, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. These days, it takes a lot for a book to get buzz unless Oprah recommends it or it features teenaged vampires. Both are fine, but I'm on a constant search for my next book love of my life.

This was not it.

It started off really great and intriguing but eventually it became too long winded and winding. Oscar is a "disastrously overweight ghetto nerd" from New Jersey and we follow him on his pathetic attempts to be anything but himself. The book is broken into sections starting with Oscar and then goes into his sister's and mothers lives. They were supposed to be vignettes that would eventually fit together, but I got really annoyed with the sudden transitions between the stores. I thought Oscar's story was hilarious, his sister's was amusing, but his mom's just felt like a "history" lesson.

What I loved: -Oscar's love for literature as I can relate
-The constant geek references (comparing people to Lord of the Rings characters)


What I hated: -The notes. I love notes in books, but they were constant and long and soon I got very tired of them and would only skim them. Very interruptive.
-The usage of Spanish. Now don't get me wrong, I like when books use other languages when appropriate (like in The Kite Runner) but a lot of times there'd be words that I didn't have any idea (without looking them up) what they meant.

All in all, I don't regret reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but I would've liked more that I could relate to OR less interruptions so I could fully immerse myself into Oscar's world. I'd like to have a convo with someone else who's read it and see what they think.