Reddit reviews The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
We found 13 Reddit comments about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
I loved these books for their beautiful writing and narrative structure:
Other suggestions, also well written but not quite in the same class as the ones above:
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
These are all books on my list to read from various suggestions. Maybe one will spark your interest:
Every Day "Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.
There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere."
1Q84"The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.”
The Mists of Avalon "Here is the magical legend of King Arthur, vividly retold through the eyes and lives of the women who wielded power from behind the throne. A spellbinding novel, an extraordinary literary achievement, THE MISTS OF AVALON will stay with you for a long time to come...."
The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao "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."
The Fault in Our Stars "Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Agustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten."
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Diaz. Great book. I highly recommend it, although since you don't know me I suppose that recommendation doesn't mean all that much. I believe it won the National Book Award, but I could be wrong.
Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Brief-Wondrous-Life-Oscar-Wao/dp/1594483299/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289934481&sr=1-1
Don't know what you like to read so I'm going to go a few ways, but these are good ''stuck in bed'' books. By Author (because thats how i like to read):
Haruki Murakami:
Hunter S Thompson (and related):*
Manuel Puig (these are shorter):
Not by same authors, but would be good together:
Favorites
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The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
..with the caveat that it's really only almost fantasy. It has the tone, and there's one or two fantasy type elements here and there, but it's a real-world setting. That said, I loved this book. It's one of my favorites.
>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.
Ursula K. Le Guin is pretty reliable when it comes to mixing up PoCs into her books, so I'd search that. Bonus, she writes both science fiction and fantasy iirc so she might have something in between.
Isabel Allende -- she's technically a Latin American literary type author, but a lot of Latin American literature is uhhhh.... I think the term for it is "magical realism." They're typically set in South America, often the characters or themes relate to native populations, and I recall a secondary character in one book who was essentially a MtF transsexual.
Aha! I found it. It's Eva Luna.
>As the years pass and her imprudent nature sends Eva from household to household—from the home of a doctor famed for mummifying the dead to a colorful whorehouse and the care of a beautiful transsexual—it is Eva’s magical imagination that keeps her alive and fuels her ardent encounters with lovers of all kinds. And as her South American homeland teeters on the brink of political chaos, and Eva’s fate is intertwined with guerrilla fighters and revolutionaries, she will find her life’s calling—and the soul mate who will envelop her in a love entirely beyond her mystical inventions.
It has the same issue as Oscar Wao (actually for the same reason, probably): they're not "fantasy" in the sense of world-building and dragons, but "with fantastical and magical elements."
I also used to really like books by Sheri S Tepper, and a few of them had women's rights themes, but I can't remember any PoCs or non-cis main characters off the top of my head. She writes sci fi, but they were enough on the fantasy end of the spectrum that I could handle them. I'm not really a sci fi person.
I also dug up this Amazon list: "Multicultural Speculative Fiction".
Also, I found a "Multicultural Graphic Novels" list which probably isn't for you but looked too awesome to not mention.
Editing to add:
"The Privilege of the Sword": technically Young Adult, I think. The uncle is gay. Or maybe bi. I think he had orgies. Yeah, that would make him bi, I think.
Patricia Briggs: Mercy Thompson. This entire series. The protagonist is half native american, and she works in a garage. The entire series is pretty imaginative, although I can't remember that her heritage is really dealt with other than "and that's why she can turn into a coyote." Patricia Briggs has been one of my favorite writers pretty much since I was a teen. Before she got popular. I'm a hipster.
Another Amazon list: "Some Lesbian Fantasy and SF Favorites". I recognize a lot of the authors' names, but the only one I've read anything by is Tanya Huff. She's very good, and the rest that I recognize have high reviews and good reputations.
Another list along the same lines
The only times this has happened to me were
The Contortionist's Handbook by Craig Clevenger and
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
I couldn't tell you what it was about them that sucked me in so drastically, but they were pretty good books. :)
Two nonfiction books I have recently read that are beautifully written and on important topics most of us are not generally aware of:
Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America
Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty
Fiction:
Confederacy of Dunces
A Fine Balance
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Both are Pulitzer Prize winners, guy-ish and accessible literary fiction.
Also, James Elroy's L.A. trilogy, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential and White Jazz. An omg his autobiography My Dark Places.
My husband recommends anything by Jim Harrison.
EDIT: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
I loved The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Oscar is a character most can relate to on some level, he's fat, nerdy, loves fantasy novels, star wars and role-playing games. He also can't seem to ever get laid, crazy huh?
Edit: thank you for downvoting with no explanation. Maybe I should have posted my comment as an imgur link?
How are there 45 comments without a mention of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao?
Ostensibly, it's about a shy, scifi/fantasy-obsessed geek growing up in the considerably-more-machismo-oriented immigrant Dominican community in bridge&tunnel Jersey, but eventually finding some massive, iron-clad balls. But you don't read Junot Diaz for the plot -- you read him because he writes like Milan Kundera with a sense of humor, or like David Foster Wallace with a heart, or like David Sedaris if David Sedaris had misspent his youth as a Dungeon Master. Also because it's a great, HST-esque crashcourse in the bizarro politics of the Cold-War Carribean.
TL;DR: This book is fucking awesome.
I also really loved A Suitable Boy. I think it's brilliant.
For a completely contrasting look at India, I recommend the white tiger by Aravind Adiga.
I think The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is absolutely brilliant, one of the best novels of the last decade.
White Teeth is another really wonderful book about multiculturalism and immigrant life that really stands out.
For a rip-roaring old-fashioned adventure yarn, you can't do better than
Sea of Poppies.
Finally for some superior storytelling and brilliant narrative experimentation try Cloud Atlas or Ghostwritten
Hi there!
I always try to run a Borges circlejerk here in /r/Spanish, but today, according to what you say, I'd suggest you read the Spanish version of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz.
I hear the Spanish version is excellent. Its the story about this Dominican-American nerd and his neckbeard struggles to find love in a wonderful narration that incorporates elements from comic book and science fiction references to Dominican jargon. Also, its not too long. Have a go at it!
Ninja edit: Linked the English version, so here's the Spanish Kindle reference.
I haven't seen it myself, but if you want something coming-of-age from a POC author/characters' perspective, Junot Diaz's The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao would probably be right up your alley.