The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Monday, Mar 29 2010

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Junot Diaz
Westminster, Md. : Books on Tape, 2007.
$100.00  ISBN 9781415941942.

(Image Credit: cape May County Library, Cape May Court House, NJ)

Oscar is an overweight, nerdy, girl-obsessed Dominican teenager growing up in Patterson, New Jersey.  His lonely existence is dominate by writing his own fantasy tales, combined with a desperate longing to find a girlfriend and overall acceptance by those around him. However, Oscar and his family seem to be cursed by the illusive fuku, a curse that has been haunting Oscar’s family for generations.

Jonathan Davis narrates this tale with ease, shifting between English and Spanish.   If you are like me, you will probably wish you knew more Espanol, because there were times when I felt that I was losing subtle pieces of information and the richness of the tale.  (On a personal note, I would have liked to see Diaz reiterate the words of the characters when they spoke in their native tongue, as opposed to carrying on with the story.  Again, I just felt like I was missing out on some important facts.) Yet, the narrator was able to convey the thoughts and feelings of Oscar and his family with effortless simplicity, even when the story turned dark and violent.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a tragic tale of how a family seems to be destined for inescapable failure.  They try to flee from their past and heritage, only to be confronted with time and time again.  Although the tale of Oscar and his family spans over several generations, they all fall victim to the fuku while they desperately search for love and acceptance.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has received the following awards.

2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Fiction of 2007.
Mercantile Library Center’s John Sargent Prize for First Novel in 2007.
Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.

It was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award.
New York Times Notable Book of 2007.
Time magazine’s Book of the Year.
Starred review in Library Journal.

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Her Fearful Symmetry Sunday, Mar 28 2010

Her Fearful Symmetry. Audrey Niffeneggar. New York, NY : Audioworks, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2009.

This story begins with a death. Elspeth Noblin dies from leukemia with her lover, Robert, at her side. In her will Elspeth leaves her London flat and assets to her two American nieces, Julia and Valentina. In order to claim their inheritance, the sisters must live in the flat for one year, and never allow their parents to enter the apartment. Julia and Valentina have never had much ambition to do anything with their lives, and since they do not have anything, or anyone, to lose, they decide to move to London for the year.

As the girls begin to explore the city and the neighboring Highgate Cemetery, they also discover the residents in Elspeth’s building:  Martin, who suffers from obsessive-compulsive-disorder, is a lone prisoner of his flat, since his wife recently left him. Robert, Elspeth’s former lover, lives above the girls. Julia and Valentina are a grim reminder of Robert’s loss, since they bear a striking resemblance to Elspeth. Yet, Julia and Valentina are not initially aware of all the building’s tenants. Elspeth herself is haunting her flat. The deeply attached twins do not realize that their seemingly simple stay in London will alter their lives, and all of those around them, forever. By searching for excitement and escape from their mundane American lives, Julia and Valentina will end up finding and losing far more than they could have ever predicted.

Audrey Niffenegger has also penned The Time Traveler’s Wife, which was recently released as a major motion picture.  

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