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MIR Store - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
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List Price: $39.95
Our Price: $20.72
Your Save: $ 19.23 ( 48% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin Audio
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780143142805
Format: Audiobook
ISBN: 0143142801
Label: Penguin Audio
Manufacturer: Penguin Audio
Number Of Items: 8
Number Of Pages: 1
Publication Date: 2007-09-06
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Studio: Penguin Audio
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Painful to get through...why did I bother?
Comment: This book has inspired me to post my first rating on amazon. The use of footnotes was lazy and the characters lacked any sense of depth. Miserable and unconvincing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Just wonderful
Comment: I adored reading this book. it reads fairly fast and is filled with so many literary, historical, and social references, almost anyone can find a way to personally invest in the characters and story.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A wonderful character, just a bit too much history
Comment: Oscar Wao is one of those truly novel creations of a gifted writer, a character that comes to life on the page. I actually felt for him as he struggles through the real world armed only with his conviction that by staying true to himself he will eventually find happiness. When the book is with Oscar it truly is fascinating, but the flashbacks into Trujillo's horrific reign over the Dominican Republic, while equally fascinating, don't move the story forward. Instead, they move story away from Oscar to the books detriment. While this history is a vital component to the story, the way it is presented bogs the story down into such detail that as I was wading my way through it I just kept wondering, "Where's Oscar?" But eventually Diaz gets back to Oscar's final fate, and the sense of how this would have to end becomes crystal clear; where Oscar's final words are so wonderfully appropriate to the character and the coda coming from Alan Moore's Watchmen end the book perfectly.
Customer Rating:
Summary: My two cents
Comment: Once you understand and adapt to the style, you realize that Mr. Diaz has a wonderful, original prose that creates a very enjoyable story.
Plenty of thorough reviews, so I don't need to say much more than that.
I just would like to make one comment. Mr. Diaz, if you are out there, save the commentary for another book, or at least limit it. The constant footnotes distract from the story.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fun Book
Comment: Nice book. Our book group read this recently. I know virtually nothing about the Dominican Republic and got a nice feel for the culture and some history. Much was lost on me though--I might have enjoyed this more if I knew more about the culture to begin with. I admit I read this quickly for my book group and many nuances were lost on me (what is a moreno?). The narrative sometimes is difficult to follow--it switches from person to person and I got lost. Still it was enjoyable.
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Editorial Reviews:
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The long-awaited-and thrillingly satisfying, genuinely original- first novel from the unmistakable voice behind the story collection Drown.
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