After all the hype

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

For months, I've been hearing about this novel by Junot Diaz and how great it is. The main character, Oscar, is a Dominican, overweight sci-fi obsessive who wants nothing more than to find love. The book follows Oscar throughout his brief life, and also tells the story of some of his other family members, like his sister and his mom. It also continually ties back to the Dominican Republic and Dominican culture.

After all the hype, I was expecting this to be one of the greatest books I'd ever read. At first, I wasn't really interested in it at all. I thought maybe I wasn't smart or patient enough to understand the greatness, or that maybe I needed to be more well-versed in sci-fi or Dominican culture. After a while, I started to enjoy it more. It was kind of funny/engrossing at some parts. In fact, a lot of times it reminded me of the book "One Hundred Years of Solitude," but I'm not entirely sure why, because I wouldn't really classify it as magic realism. Anyway, I didn't find it as amazing as the rest of the world seems to have. I also think the ending would have been better if the last chapter wasn't there. I give it 7 pretzel bites.

KAY