I have mixed feelings about this 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a nerdy second-generation Dominican American man who is highly intelligent but finds it impossible to land a date, much less intimacy with a woman. Oscar and his sister grow up in Paterson, NJ, but their family continues to have a connection to their mother's home and relatives in the Dominican Republic (DR). Oscar loves science fiction, gaming, and writing, but just doesn't fit in. His story is only part of the narrative, which veers from Oscar's challenges to his sister Lola's escapades as a runaway, his mother's trauma as a survivor of Trujillo's political purges, and Oscar and Lola's friend Yunior's inability to remain loyal to one woman. By the end of the book, I felt invested in the characters and wanted to see how it all played out for each of them, but there was a lot about the book that irked me and made it difficult to get through it, especially in the beginning. There is a heavy use of Spanish, too much to look up every phrase, so I ended up moving forward without understanding everything that was being said or implied. There are a lot of footnotes that explain DR history. While I found these interesting, pausing reading the narrative to read the footnotes was annoying. I would have preferred to have the history worked into the main narrative instead. I didn't mind the language and profanity, but the book was also incredibly violent, with scenes and explanations of torture. While this may represent the reality of DR history and what actually happened, I would have preferred not to encounter them in my fiction. In the end, I liked the book more than I disliked it. It's worth reading just for the history alone.
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