The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Narrator: Karen Olivo, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Pages: 358
Published by Penguin Audio
Publication Date December 20, 2016
Goodreads
Read by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony Award®-winning creator and star of the musical Hamilton, and Tony Award®-winning actress, Karen Olivo. This brilliant narration adds another layer of lyricism and depth to this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic novel.
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 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.
First Sentence:
Our hero was not one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about – he wasn’t no home-run hitter or a fly bachatero, not a playboy with a million hots on his jock.
My Thoughts:
- I love books about geeks and I couldn’t help but fall in love with Oscar
- Lin-Manuel Miranda narrates — enough said
- Even though the reader knows the outcome of the leading character I kept reading (or listening) until the very end to learn the who, what, where and why.
You have me at Lin Manuel Miranda narrating! Sounds like. a lovely story.