Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)

An unfortunately ugly, socially inept Dominican-American boy goes through life wondering when he'll ever get laid. The first half of the story is told from the perspectives of several different characters, the second half from the perspective of Oscar's best friend, who isn't really that good of a friend after all.

I was looking forward to reading this book, especially after reading Díaz's Drown, which I really enjoyed. But I found myself forgetting about this book when I wasn't reading it. When I did think about it, I had to struggle to remember the plot. One of the merits of this book was that it is wrought with footnotes, an unusual feature in novels. The footnotes offer true (yet biased) tidbits from the Dominican Republic's history. It's a sort of historical fiction that sometimes reads as a straight history book.

My friend Ryan had advised that I read Watchmen before reading Oscar Wao, in order to understand the novel easier. Oscar was definitely interested in graphic novels, anime, role-playing games, etc., but I'm not sure that Watchmen was ever specifically mentioned in this novel. Though I'm glad that I read Alan Moore's graphic novel, it's definitely not a prerequisite to Oscar Wao. However, I do think that a good companion to this book would be In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez.