The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

This book is a post-modern family epic couched in Dominican culture, history, and folklore. It follows the sad life of an overweight sic-fi nerd's struggle with cultural/stereotypical machismo expectations (being a Dominican man) and his inability to be with any women due to aforementioned weight/overt neediness, and how this somehow delegitimizes him as a human. Díaz employs a super interesting narrative style that includes footnotes explaining the Dominican dictatorship of the 20th century via footnotes, interjections sci-fi and pop culture references, and playful Spanglish.

Overall I liked it and it was like nothing I've read before, but I had a hard time getting really absorbed in it.