Mixed feelings on this one. I want to like it more than I reckon I do. As a generational story of Dominicans weathering violence and oppression and coming to America, it's great. As nerdy Oscar's story, or a story held together by Oscar--he ultimately seems to be the linchpin, and other elements of the novel resolve in the background--it doesn't quite work. Perhaps it's because Oscar carries so little of the narrative weight, or simply because it's nearly impossible to care whether he gets laid, which pitifully remains his main source of conflict, but Oscar and his proclivities seem too far removed from the story to anchor it. I love D&D and sci-fi and all, but the story never really earns its references. They feel alien to the story being told. The voice is out of place but also without modulation, a problem I think rears its head in Diaz's short fiction, as well.