The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Riverhead
Category: EBooks
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $8.40
You Save: $5.60 (40%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  203 reviews
Sales Rank: 41
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B000UZJRGI
Publication Date: September 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Amazon.com Review
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 Fuku - 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. Diaz 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 Diaz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 198 more reviews...
 Well Deserved Pulitzer Winner October 16, 2008
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books 2007)
Brilliant, acerbic and filled with the love of revenge that writers are famous for: revenge for being black, being poor, being Dominican, and revenge for being smarter than the monsters who pervert the course of the world, both politically and personally. (Would that every dictator great and small could achieve such an excoriating epitaph as the DR's Trujillo does in this book.) It's also filled with love--just plain love. A wondrous book, not brief, with an irreverence you can't buy these days. It's the real thing, the genuine article: inspired, comic, brilliant and moving. It's also grateful. It pisses in the face of the world and then says `Thank you.' Oscar Wao is a fatboy nerd who wants to be JRR Tolkien and marry J-Lo (or the next nearest best thing.) His tale is probably far more common than we imagine, because he's exactly the kind of person who gets noticed last, and always too late. Not this time, however, for this book plants him dead centre in the spotlight, where he belongs. Think Zadie Smith before she got all awards-conscious, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez in his finest moments, Richard Pryor in some of his zaniest, and you have Oscar Wao's life as told by Dominican immigrant Diaz. Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
www.jeffreyround.com
Not Since " The Stand" October 16, 2008
OMG!!! Not since the stand have I been this moved by a book. 1st things 1st. I have 16 brothers and sisters. The 2 brothers I was closest with, have a different father than I do. My brothers last name....Wao. I grew up A spanglish spewing, Marvel (and sometimes DC) comic loving,(who's grand-parents escaped from El Trujillo and moved to...) I am a Puerto Rican. I am a geek. I am from Jersey. I am Ely Rodriguez. I am Oscar Wao.
 Brief Wondrous Life October 10, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The humor of the book is hard for me to connect with. I found it boring, and never completed the book.
 spanish readers only October 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
if you can read spanish this book is for you. most of punchh lines are in spanish i did not understand alot of the book
Impressive October 8, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book delves into layers of history, despots, struggle, and the courage of everyday human beings in a less than welcoming world. A masterpiece!
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