Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

What to say? One of my favorite novels of all time, and I'm not alone: the book won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for literature, and as far as awards go, I generally enjoy Pulitzer winners. Yet the accolades didn't prepare me for Wao. 

The gist: we follow Dominican boy Oscar de León through a humorous albeit pained childhood and adolescence, in which our morbidly-obese nerd strives for nothing more than to make it with a girl. All while a curse follows his family from the Dominican Republic (which the family fled during the Dominican diaspora, the political backdrop set forth in detail) to Paterson, New Jersey. Throw in a slew of references from comic books, sci-fi lit, D&D, comic books, plus footnotes and mucho Spanish slang, and Wao is a strange tasty gumbo. 

#1 Recommendation