Journal Entry 1 by indygo88 from Lafayette, Indiana USA on Thursday, September 02, 2010

"Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who — from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister — dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú — a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere — and risk it all — in the name of love."

Acquired through PaperBackSwap (Unabridged on 13 CD's; read by Jonathan Davis w/ Staci Snell; includes bonus discs with short story collection of "Drown") 

Journal Entry 2 by indygo88 at Lafayette, Indiana USA on Saturday, November 27, 2010

I apparently didn't appreciate this one as much as most readers. I listened to it on audio, with Jonathan Davis as the primary reader. I've liked Davis as a reader in other novels (esp. in The Shadow of the Wind) -- he's good, but I didn't feel like he "fit" for this one. But regardless ... I don't think that was the primary reason this novel didn't do it for me. I found the information regarding the history of The Dominican Republic, while enlightening, rather dry and a little excessive. And contrary to other readers' opinions, the fairly frequent Spanish words thrown in (without translation) bothered me, although granted, not enough to make me run for my English-Spanish dictionary. The description of this novel found on the back cover is a little misleading too. It's not just a story about Oscar Wao -- it's much more than that. It covers several generations of family & while I appreciated that, I didn't particularly like the way it all fit together. A little too disjointed, I thought. However, after all was said and done, I thought the last portion of the book was the most well-written & I'm glad I stuck it through until the end.