I did not particularly care for this book. The Tolkien references and some of the descriptions of Dominican-American life were interesting, but overall the writing was too ... colloquial for my taste. I could have handled the liberal use of the F-bomb and the oh-so-street-cred narrative and the numerous footnotes reminding us what a cabrón Trujillo was and the depressing self-destructive habits of every character. What finally sent me over the edge, though, was the single sentence that spanned over more than two pages. At that point I might have given up on the book, except:
- I was far enough along that I did care what happened to the poor sap Oscar
- I have a stubborn streak in me and I wasn't going to let this book get the better of me
- It was for Book Club ... and I picked it!
On the positive side, we had a good discussion about it.
