The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

By: Junot Diaz

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Staci Snell

Length: 16 hrs

Publisher's summary

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.

©2007 Junot Diaz (P)2007 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. and Books on Tape

Critic reviews

Winner of:

The Pulitzer Prize

The National Book Critics Circle Award

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award

The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize

A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year

One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

One of the best books of 2007 according to: The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, People, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Salon, Baltimore City Paper, The Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, New York Public Library, and many more...

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read and named one of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

"An extraordinarily vibrant book that's fueled by adrenaline-powered prose... A book that decisively establishes [Díaz] as one of contemporary fiction's most distinctive and irresistible new voices." (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)

"Díaz finds a miraculous balance. He cuts his barn-burning comic-book plots (escape, ruin, redemption) with honest, messy realism, and his narrator speaks in a dazzling hash of Spanish, English, slang, literary flourishes, and pure virginal dorkiness." (New York Magazine)

"Genius... a story of the American experience that is giddily glorious and hauntingly horrific. And what a voice Yunior has. His narration is a triumph of style and wit, moving along Oscar de Leon's story with cracking, down-low humor, and at times expertly stunning us with heart-stabbing sentences. That Díaz's novel is also full of ideas, that [the narrator's] brilliant talking rivals the monologues of Roth's Zuckerman - in short, that what he has produced is a kick-ass (and truly, that is just the word for it) work of modern fiction - all make The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao something exceedingly rare: a book in which a new America can recognize itself, but so can everyone else." (San Francisco Chronicle)

Layer upon layer of history, character development

If you could sum up The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in three words, what would they be?

Historical, raw, gripping

Who was your favorite character and why?

I enjoyed most listening to the chapters told through Lola's eyes, Oscar's sister. Many things about her are things I aspire to be, independent, strong, sensible and fiercely protective of her brother.

What about Jonathan Davis and Staci Snell ’s performance did you like?

Jonathan Davis and Staci Snell did an incredible job with the bilingual nature of this story. The way in which they voiced the Spanish words was beautiful, and for those without some Spanish background, both articulate their sentences to convey clearly the context of the Spanish words.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I did not have an extreme laughing or crying reaction to this book, but I did really enjoy this story. It has many wonderful layers that make it rich and thought provoking. It is set against a historical backdrop, but spans the time of three generations. Each of the main characters is connected by familial ties and by their relationship to Oscar. There is a curse, cultural cues and tradition, and the vast misfortune that relentless follows the Cabral family.

Any additional comments?

By far one of my favorite books.

chapters were not synced with the actual story

loved the pronunciations and accents, well performed, just need audible to fix the markers. thanks

Love-hate relationship with the story

Loved the narrators. Struggled at the beginning but it was an amazing story. Admire Junot's ability to take us away from reality.

Didn't Fully Congeal

I found the most interesting messages from this book were the ones skirting the edges of the narrative. When the narrator, Yunior, tried to bring together his thoughts, the takeaways seemed superficial, but the excess, the stuff he couldn't quite get his hands around, was fascinating. Perhaps that was part of the point though: the difficulty of processing our friendships. Loved the Dominican history, and Yunior's casual lingo peppered with Dominican sayings. The reader's performance was top notch. Really engaging!

Wow about Wao!

Junot Diaz is a world class storyteller. A complicated story woven in a way that gripped me tight from word one and never let go! Brilliant work!

I also cannot say enough good things about the narration--excellent--brought the story to life.

I'd listen to this again and again!!

fantastic

Would you consider the audio edition of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to be better than the print version?

This book took me places I didn't expect; an intricate story with rich characters, interwoven with humor and history. Going to listen a second time!

Different and Fresh

It took me a while to catch on to the style and idea of this book, but once I did I couldn't wait to hear more. It is a great way to learn about another culture, and to understand where a person is coming from before judging.

Wonderful book!

Great listen, characters were real and so was the language. One of my top 5 books ever.

Read the book rather than listen

Would you try another book from Junot Diaz and/or Jonathan Davis and Staci Snell ?

I read this book last year and loved it. It was a page turner that had so many character arcs, backstory, history, and prose. I'll be checking out whatever Junot Diaz has to offer.

How could the performance have been better?

This was not a book for Jonathan Davis to read. Staci Snell's performance was a little better. She felt a little more empathetic. To be honest, I'd really like to hear this story in the voice of someone from the Dominican Republic, not someone acting in the voice of someone from the DR. The page turning novel turned into a dreadful "do I really want to listen to this today?" and most of the time the answer was no. This is not the fault of the narrator, per se. Davis does an ok job performing, but this is not his book to read.

Very inventive alndgripping , disappointing ending

I listened with awe to this imaginative book. The occasional switch to Spanish made it all the more authentic. I liked it so much that I was disappointed when it ended.