I was dying laughing within the first few pages of this book, clearly picturing that little kid all Dominicans knew who was the first to master "el perrito," the raucous parties with kids dancing in ways that are horrendously inappropriate in hindsight, but that everyone gathered around to laugh at. It was well done stereotypes because they were real and a touch self-deprecating.

I felt like I've met every character within in this book at least once in real life, or there were pieces of everyone in people I've met before. Though the characters seemed a little (purposefully) larger than life, it was so woven with things I've experienced and seen before. They were caricatures, almost, and in a good way.

Oscar is not particularly sympathetic and he's pretty much just very whiney and depressed through the whole book. I get people who say that is their major problem, but in the end, Oscar's brief life was just kind of the thing holding up all of these wonderful parts that were more the story: the narration (Yunior narrated Oscar's life perfectly), the history woven perfectly with sci-fi elements (seriously? How was Trujillo even a real person?), the family dynamics, the new world and the ongoing mission to break free from the "curse" of the third world your family left behind.

I think it's also worth it to keep in mind that we're getting Oscar's life from other POVs. Perhaps his almost cartoonish quest for sex and love is filtered through the lens of people who never really understood him anyway.

From start to crazy long footnotes at the end (best footnotes ever), I just loved the crap out of this book, one that I immediately told all my family they had to read and one I will revisit without a doubt.