The Brief Wondrous Life Oscar Wao by Juno Diaz

While the last book I read was about Jewishness, this one is about Dominican-ness. Set in America and the Dominican Republic, this complex book tells the story of a young Dominican, Oscar, and his struggles to fit in with society. But it’s really a device to focus the reader’s attention on the story of the Dominican Republic, about which I knew nothing, and the horrors of the Trujillo dictatorship, the violence, the corruption and the aftermath. It takes a while to figure out who exactly is telling the story, though that’s part of the interest actually, and it’s told in an authentic Dominican voice. The narrator adds numerous footnotes to explain who characters or or what events relate to. It’s not an uplifting story, but certainly a fascinating one. Diaz is obviously some sort of genius when it comes to structuring his novel as well; there’s the usual range of plot structures that 99 per cent of writers use and then there’s this, which doesn’t really fit any mould. I got a bit lost in some of the rantings from some of the characters, and skipped a few pages here and there, but that was as much wanting to get to the end to find out the worst because the suspense was killing me!