7th and 8th books for 2010

These next two books I have read this year are fiction novels that I felt drew a lot on each author's personal life and experiences.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

An Xmas gift from my sister-in-law, this is a Pulitzer-Prize winning story of a Dominican family, set in both New Jersey and Dominican Republic. My sister-in-law said I should read it with a Spanish phrasebook handy - wish I had! Colourful and easy-to-read and funny + sad, spanning stories from across the family including the title character Oscar, narrated by a friend of his sister. Oscar is this huge fat guy with a total love of sci-fi and comics and no game with the ladies. His sister is sharp-edged, kind of angry. Their mother - I felt so sorry for her, in a way that made me realise - wow, there's some great characters in this book. The author, Junot Diaz, is a Dominican whose family moved to NJ when he was a child.

Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch

This book... this book is marketed as a novel but halfway through, I felt like I was actually reading a memoir. It's very memoir-ish, full of scenes from someone's life rather than having an actual storyline. And the author is from Charleston and raised to be a 'Camellia' (women's society member), just like the main character. It was a smooth read, concocting a lovely atmosphere of Southern upbringing and lifestyle and personality, but ended with what felt like a tacked-on ending at a point where the author just ran out of scenes. It read in a very real way, and I think that's what made it feel memoir-ish. All the characters and actions are real people things, making mistakes (again and again) and have real emotions and there's no happy sparkly ending. I got this book from one of the op-shops down North End Rd, and think I'll return it there too...