The Nature of Things

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao  racked up most of the major literary awards when it came out in 2007, including the Pulitzer. It was hailed as a  tour de force  by most critics. Now that I've finally gotten around to reading the book, I have to agree. It is an amazing work. This was Junot Diaz's first novel. Of course, since then he's written another greatly acclaimed book,  This Is How You Lose Her . I'm putting it on my "to be read" list. We meet Oscar as an amazingly sweet-tempered, grossly obese teenage geek who lives in a fantasy world of gaming, anime, comics, and  Lord of the Rings  with his rebellious older sister and his Dominican mother in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. Most of all, he dreams of finding love. He falls in love repeatedly, usually with the most highly inappropriate females, but his sentiments are never returned. He's never been kissed. Things are not easy for this immigrant Domini...