Books The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - Soulless, Masturbatory Laundry List of Sci-Fi, NJ, and DR References
This book fails to capture the essence of the protagonist's youth in NJ, his obsessive love for all things geeky (sci-fi, fantasy, comic books), or what it means to be Latin American in the U.S. If you like superficial laundry lists of pop references flavored with DR Spanglish, you'll buy into this mediocrity.

This book left me with no sense of place, be it Jersey or DR, or any sense of the root of Oscar's passion for escapist sci-fi/fantasy. Dropping anti-hip geek references flavored with Latin lingo doesn't serve as adequate filler for legitimate talent, and it certainly doesn't make this a book worth wasting your time on.

There are much better books to be read on all fronts, whether you're looking for engaging Latin American lit, NJ lit, or sci-fi/fantasy flavored literary fiction.

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Rating: - Oscar Wao is Wondrous
A deep, complicated, sad, humourous, entertaining book. Who would have thought that the sci-fi world would blend so well with the Era of Trujillo? I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love the narrator's voice and the fact that you don't know exactly who he is or how he relates to Oscar for a long time. I also particularly enjoyed the footnotes and the narrator's sarcastic & bitter description of all things Trujillo. I will definitely read this book again - it's so multi-layered that I'm sure I would come up with a whole new conclusion on the book. I definitely would recommend this, although it is not a light undertaking!

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Rating: - insider's guide to sex, love, nerdiness, and the dominican republic
This book is excellent, there is so many layers to it. There is the endless search for love and sex by an obese, SF geek. There is the narrator's own quest to discover his own values. There is an homage to family life. There is an undercurrent on Trujillo and the corruption, poverty, and untold violence in the DR that few of us in the United States ever heard about and if we did, can appreciate in its totality. Somehow Diaz pulls this all off so that it is witty, clever, and incredibly difficult to put down. One of those books where you wait for the real world to end so you can get back to where you left off last.

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Rating: - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
This book was great, enjoyed it thoroughly, luvd his incisive footnotes. After reading Oscar Wao, I bought Drown, so good as well!! Wonderful read!!