The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao Summary

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is a Spanglish novel that takes readers on a journey of torture, romance, tragic accidents, and ancient curse. This novel takes place in New Jersey with a family who has many family secrets and is in search for redemption. Oscar de Leon, the main character is described as and overweight "ghetto nerd" with many dreams of finding love and becoming the Dominican Tolkien.He has a curse know as the fuku, placed on him by American people. Oscar believes he is a superhero, and obsessed with science fiction. He is not very social, and left alone in school and his community. He always had an imagination even through his teacher career that know one could relate to. Lola is Oscar sister and loves her

So as a reader you might end up rereading the beginning.Diaz waits so long at the beginning of the book to reveal who the narrator is so we would understand who he is and his relationship to the family. This was a very logical way of doing so because then we knew Yunior's background and who he was instead of guessing and wondering throughout the book. It just made more sense to wait. To have Yunior narrating the story gives readers the feeling that they are getting the whole story, both sides instead of one side. If the story was told from someone else from the family the story we would be completely different. We would not get all of it because of all the secrets the family had going on. It would also not be as easy for a family member to say straight forward because of their personal experiences, history and secrets. Yunior voice, sarcasm, footnotes, cultural references and overall structure make you feel like you are really seeing what he is

Oscar is an awkward overweight nerd while Yunior was an athlete who could bench 340 pounds. There values were also completely opposite. Oscar is a romantic, caring, faithful, and respectful. Yunior is the stereotypical type of a man that is masculine with no care for anything, a cheater, and no value or sympathy in things. Despite all these differences they became best friends. Oscar admires some of the masculine traits Yunior has and would talk with him about it, and girl since there was no other males in his life he could ask. Yunior admires the way Oscar can hold friendships, and his writing style. Most importantly they learned from each other, with each others help and support and both admired one another. Even though Oscar dies at the end he still fulfilled his dream of being with a girl. Once he died Yunior looks up to Oscar even more and stops following the dictatorship and change his life around to be a better man. So who not better then to have tell your life story then from someone who witnessed it and looked up to