The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Díaz, 2007)Reading about the book, it seems to have found around a million prizes and awards, and the critical reception appears to look like a massive jerk off session. I’m not really much of a reader, so it is possible I am missing something completely. Also, I listened to it in audio book format while driving to and from work, and I’m guessing that will probably make me lose some points from a reader.
But I have my opinion, and given that my own opinion is the only one that belongs to me, I have to charge through the critical bullshit and tell you that the book is crap. It tells the story of a Dominican nerd called Oscar. This guy is a complete dork, anti-social, annoying, fat, and a failure at everything in life. There is nothing positive about him, and reading about his life, I can’t really care that he is failing at love and relationships, given that he deserves it for being so useless. The good news is that the book also shifts and tells the story about the people surrounding Oscar, such as the narrator’s own story, Oscar’s sister, Oscar’s mother, and Oscar’s grandparents. The bad news is that those people are also stupid, and I can’t really care much about them either.
The book also annoyingly has phrases suddenly appearing in Spanish. Oh, I know, Dominican-American author, this makes the book look very exotic and makes non-Dominican authors cream their fucking pants. But personally, I am already from a third world country, and those sly tricks don’t work on me. If I am reading an English book, you better write it all in English. I can understand if a character says something in English most of the time, and suddenly says something in a different language, but the author should assume the READER wouldn’t know the meaning of it. I don’t want to read a book and suddenly have someone say something like, “And he said the famous final words” and the rest being Spanish gibberish. Irritating.
The audio book format was really good though. I think this is the first fiction audiobook I have ever listened to, and it is a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be. I figured, audiobooks would be distracting and hard to follow, but the voice actually adds to the book. Plus, it makes the driving much more easier.
2/5
