An emotionally raw book about loss and love in the Dominican-American experience; and also a book that is shockingly hostile to women. I very much enjoyed the Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but this book struck me as much more angry and bitter, so it was a bit of a disappointment. Diaz’s prose is gripping and fluid; even his steadfast avoidance of punctuation in dialog contributes to the rapid pace of narration. Whereas Oscar Wao was a masterful combination of history and narrative that spanned generations, this book attempts to do less. Except for a few minor changes of perspective and granularity, we see a lot less ambition for complex literature, and a lot more channeling of raw emotion. While I can certainly sympathize with the need to exorcise those feelings, I would have appreciated a story that reached for transcendence, rather than attempted a sort of cold literary revenge.