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| The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | 
 enlarge | Author: Junot Diaz
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.37
You Save: $10.58 (42%)
New (53) Used (32) Collectible (15) from $14.37
Avg. Customer Rating:  144 reviews
Sales Rank: 46
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.8 x 2.1
ISBN: 1594489580
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781594489587
ASIN: 1594489580
Publication Date: September 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: ALL BOOKS ARE BRAND NEW
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Amazon.com
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
This is the long-awaited first novel from one of the most original and memorable writers working today.
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukoe-the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.
Daz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot Daz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 139 more reviews...
A little wow for Wao June 28, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have to say I liked it. Kind of a day-in-the-life story that spans a long time. I found it infectious and descriptive, the kind of story that has you thinking the way the characters think and speak. Ending wasn't very clear but is good anyway. Definitely worth reading for the how it pulls you into the feel of it.
 A transcendent novel about the power of love. June 24, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
In contrast with last year's Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction, Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" which is a novel of intense despair and lack of hope, Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao", this year's Pulitzer winner, is brimming with life and hope. It is a special novel, heartbreaking sweet and touching and filled with an overwhelming sense of human warmth. This is literature as a form of magic, a wonderful spell that entrances and makes us feel better about the human experience. It is a novel that filled my heart with hope.
The novel follows the life and times of a Dominican-American family: the beautiful and fierce mother, Belicia, the smart, intensely-driven daughter, Lola, and Oscar, an obese sci-fi/fantasy-loving nerd who is unlucky in love. A history of family misfortunes and tragedies leads the family to believe they are haunted by an ancient curse or fuku. As one may expect from the title, Oscar is the main focus of the story, but each of the three main characters, as well as other members of the family, have chapters detailing their own story. We watch as each character struggles to find their own answer to the fuku, all of them seemingly unsuccessful and doomed to misfortune.
The question eventually arises, though, in the novel: can love overcome tragedy? Does embracing love so intensely in the face of peril speak only of the tragedy or of something else transcendent? We only have to envision the Christian crucifix to comprehend the import of this question. But this is also what makes "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" so human and transcendent.
Diaz writes with a manic energy that imbues the story with a vast amount of life and heart. Passion flows from the pages like happy waves lapping against the reader. The characterizations, particularly of Oscar, are vivid and brilliant. Diaz lays his characters out fully open in front of us with all their flaws exposed, and eventually, this honesty charmed me, leading me to embrace these wonderful characters. I loved them for their honesty, love and passion.
Last Word:
It is a rare thing when a novel can truly capture a transcendent emotion like love, lay it out, and enrich everyone who reads about it. Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" is such a novel, and deserves to be celebrated and recognized as a great American literary treasure.
 Lost on a White Girl? June 24, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Maybe because I'm a white girl from the Midwest who studied French instead of Spanish, but I had trouble getting into this book. In fact, I've set it aside to try tackling another time. Lots of Spanish slang that I didn't understand was distracting. It's won some prestigious awards, so I'm trusting it's worth trying again--but I wouldn't suggest it to my friends for a breezy summer read.
deserves a place next to the most prestigious and intelligent literary works of recent memory June 23, 2008
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
The books is in itself a masterpiece. It is written in plain language and illustrates (at least for us Dominicans) a story that we can relate to. A story that contains characters we've all known, or have partially, at least, met in our lifetime. Very rich and contains lots of literary insight, both into pop culture, history and politics. A MUST READ.
Engaging, yet disengaging... June 20, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I thought this was a very engaging book, but it certainly had too many disconnecting moments due to the spanish 'interruptions'. I have nothing against another language - I myself am bilingual - but I think the author/editors/bundlers/publishers/whomever, could have been more thoughtful towards the reader; it wasn't merely minimal spanish that could possibly have been understood in context, but instead long sentences and entire conversations - not fair! Anyway, great prose, dialogue, appeal to emotion, educational value, etc., but though I can think of many words to describe Oscar DeLeon's brief life, none of them would be Wondrous, or any of it's synonyms for that matter.
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