Not really sure how I'm going to rate this book. I was thinking I should give this a full 4 stars (5 is highest), but in the end I decided for 3 1/2. Not that it didn't deserve it. I did have fun reading the book and I did smile at the ending. Yes (and I don't think this is much of a spoiler since the title says it all), the main character died, but the ending did make me smile and murmur ... way to go, Oscar (notice the pun, would'ya?). Now, when the LA Times reviewed the book and said: "It's impossible to categorize ... Diaz's novel is a hell of a book. It doesn't care about categories." ... they weren't kidding. It's a contemporary literature historical fiction, bit of SF (if only for the fuku) memoir (of some sort) all rolled into one. And pardon me if I forgot anything else. Why 3 1/2, then? There are two things that killed this for me. First, I don't speak Spanish. I understand very little of it so I had to (yes) Google Translate the other's I couldn't understand. And second, I'm sure everyone reading the paperback noticed it too ... the book is swarming with footnotes. I mean, I get it, you'd want a better way to explain the history etc without ruining the flow of the story but it's actually very distracting especially if the footnotes take half of the page. And being me, I can't ignore the footnotes. I have to read them so it still ruined the flow. So there. I can get why it won the prestigious award (and people may say these awards are nothing but a politics-filled joke) but I guess there are just books that only cater to a specific crowd. This one may not be something written for mine but, again, it is a fun read. Oh and if you're not a native speaker like me, you might want to get the audio book as well. It just gives the book a different feeling. And speaking of the audio book, the woman narrator can get monotonous in some parts (maybe it's just me). Jonathan Davis was pretty cool, though. |
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