Love it or Hate it: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Have you ever noticed how some books seem to drive a wedge between people? You check the reviews and find almost no middle-of-the-road ratings. Instead people either seem to love it or hate it. Well, welcome to the Love it or Hate it post category! Each month, we’ll pick one book to review and two contributors will battle it out to convince you to pick it up or throw it out. Last month we discussed Life of Pi and once again the “love it” fans won with 66% of the vote. Many thanks to Sara and Kristel for their wonderful reviews.
This month we will be discussing: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. We have two contributors this month and their names will be revealed after voting closes! Please make sure to vote for this month’s book even if you haven’t read the book you can vote! The poll is at the bottom of this post.
Book Summary (from GoodReads): Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who 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 fukú — the ancient curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim – until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last.
With dazzling energy and insight, Junot Díaz immerses us in the uproarious lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious beauty-queen mother Belicia, and in the epic journey from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to New Jersey’s Bergenline and back again. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humor, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and the endless human capacity to persevere – and to risk it all – in the name of love.
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by Yann Martel. We have two contributors this month and their names will be revealed after voting closes! Please make sure to vote for this month’s book! The poll is at the bottom of this post.
Book Worm
jenp27
Nicole Del Sesto
The Reader's Room 