I’ve heard a LOT about Junot Diaz and his works. Out of curiosity, I decided to read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And I am super ambivalent about what I just read. Especially since a lot of parts reminded me of Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents–but with an extra layer of self-loathing. The novel is several stories surrounding the titular character, Oscar. He is a Dominican-American young man who is overweight and geeky, with interests in writing, science fiction, […]
By Lying, Cheating, and Cheating, Yes, “This Is How You Lose Her”
Junot Diaz’s This Is How You Lose Her (2012) is an eight story collection of machismo, misogynistic narratives centered around Yunior, a seemingly compulsive cheater who is forced to face the consequences of his actions. Never having read Diaz before, I had no idea what to expect, and after reading epigraph by Sandra Cisneros, I used my knowledge her structure and style from The House on Mango Street (1984) to guide me. What ensued was a rather confusing read. Unlike some who found Diaz’s use of Spanglish to be the […]
A guide to love from a chronic cheater
This Is How You Lose Her is a series of short stories that deal mostly with men’s infidelity in relationships, with the exception of one of the stories being from a women’s point of view. Readers of Diaz’s first book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, will recognize Yunior, who appears repeatedly in the stories in relationships with different women. A running theme throughout these stories is how men don’t often see women as a real person. Like Yunior’s dog brother, Rafa, who sees […]
It Really Was All Too Brief…
My book club picked The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz for our February get together. This is the reason I love book club, because I would never have picked up this book on my own. Also, like every other female book club, we drink large amounts of wine. But we always read the book! The novel is centered around Oscar, a tragic and hopeless lame teenager, during his high school and college years. Oscar is overweight, socially awkward, and just […]