The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz: Book Review School Edition!

Hello, everyone! I'm back, and I'm here to review The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I'm reading this book for my post modernism class, and I'll start out by saying that I was pleasantly surprised. This book is about a kid named, you guessed it, Oscar. He's a fat nerdy kid who no one really gets, and everyone is trying to push him into being someone he really isn't. Not that the rest of the family doesn't have their problems. They definitely do, and they all get told in The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. But enough about that. Let's get onto the review!

As I said before, I was quite surprised with this novel. In case you haven't noticed, I haven't had much luck loving my school books this semester. I didn't hold high hopes with this novel either, but as I started reading it, I found myself wanting to continue it. Even when we had stopped talking about it in class, I felt compelled to finish it. It kept me on the edge of my seat, and it was one of the few books that I found myself looking forward to read when I woke up.

So let's talk about why I love this book. The characters are really something else. First, there's Oscar. Part of me feels bad for him, but then another part makes me want to throttle him. Then there's his sister, Lola. I really felt connected with her. She does what she wants, and does try to help her family, but she's ready to fight for herself if need be. Then there's the mama. She's had a hard life, and she isn't able to show any love to her children. Her back story is rather gruesome, and it was one part of the story that made me crave for more.

There's also some more aspects at play. There are cultural norms that none of the characters adhere to, whether they try to or not. There's a dictatorship that pressures them and forces them to think that they're cursed rather than face the actual problem. There's a weird family dynamic despite their problems. Then there's the mix of Spanish, fantasy, and scifi references. That's one of my favorite parts, actually. It's actually pretty cool when I was reading along and found a Spanish phrase I knew or fantasy reference, but they are in the book for more than my enjoyment. My professor was saying how these terms were describe everything because everything was so fantastically bad. It was the only way to describe the situation, which made me think about the book more.

All in all, I'm not surprised that this book has received a lot of hype and a lot of awards for how awesome it is. For it being a post modernism novel, I found myself both enjoying it and understanding it. With everything said and done, I'm giving this four and a half stalks of cane out of five.



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