Book: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Author: Junot Diaz
Published: 2007
Publisher: Riverhead Books, an imprint of The Penguin Group
Date Read: 13 June 2014
Format: Paperback
First Line: “They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles.”
Genre/Rating: Contemporary Fiction, 5+
GoodReads Rating: 3.84
Review: How do I review The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao? I could write a string of sincere adjectives like brilliant, epic, amazing, delicious, intelligent, thrilling, page turner, infective, etc, but those words seem hollow and one-dimensional when attempting to relate my feelings about this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. This novel needs to be read slowly and deliberately, for Junot Diaz's prose is both pristine and unclean and is a great joy to experience. The breath of the novel is panoramic as it flows from island to continent and back again, from era to era, and from narrator to narrator. The prose of this novel will long stay with me and I look forward to many and many rereadings.
-Joseph
Soli Deo Gloria
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