198/200

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I'm still not entirely sure whether I should give this book 2 stars or 3. I listened to it as an audiobook, and the one main impression that I got from that was that the female had a really melifilous (sp?) voice that I truly enjoyed listening to. I wish she spoke more. I think the title of the book is rather misleading. Although Oscar (whose last name is not even Wao) does have a short life, I think it was far from wondrous. In fact, nothing really happened to him at all except for his tragic end. The meat and potatoes of the story is actually Oscar's family. The problem may have been with me because it was through an audio book but I had a hard time keeping track of time periods and characters since Diaz jumps through time several times. Oscar's mom is an extremely unlikeable character, although in time you begin to understand her a little. I still don't really get why she was so awful to her kids. I liked Oscar's sister, Lola, the most, although that isn't really saying much as none of the character's were all that likable. The narrator himself seemed like a jerk. The language of the book was really harsh, and I found it frustrating to have so many things said in Spanish without a translation. Worst of all, I thought Oscar's demise was pathetic. Truly pathetic. I don't know what he was attempting to accomplish at the end, and the way he died was just silly. The way he was threatening the goons, I thought he had some kind of plan when really it was just an anti-climactic stall tactic.

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