There are two constants that link this story collection to Junot Diaz’s magnificent 2007 novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. One is the soaring, crackling voice, which mixes eloquent Dominican swagger with a 21st century pop culture patois to create a deeply expressive and frequently hilarious literary language that apparently only Diaz can speak. The other is the character of Yunior, a would-be writer who alternates his relentless womanizing with moments of deeply sad self-awareness — “I’m like everybody else,” he tells us, “weak, full of mistakes, but basically good.” Diaz’s characters love or at least lust passionately and uncontrollably — they look on in horror and fascination, as we do, at the chaos of their own hearts — and Diaz invites us to watch the disaster along with them.
