This is how you lose her by Junot Diaz

Whaaaat? A book review? Here? On the book blog? Hold onto your seats people (audience of one). Something happened in 2012, where I read a lot of trashy magazines at airports between Sydney and Melbourne, and sometimes slept with a puppy on my head. Both of these circumstances make reading a bonafide book difficult. The release of a new Diaz propelled me out of my book funk and straight to the register. I thought Oscar Wao was genius, and opened the first page with high expectations. Fifteen or so pages I realised…..hang on, these are short stories. I felt ripped off, angry, doubtful (there are some great short story writers out there but also some god-awful ones). Thankfully, Diaz turned out to be the former rather than the latter. Yunior again is our narrator, and he weaves in and out of stories that are connected but not chronological. The characters are desperately in love, desperate, often poor and treat each other poorly – like how a lot of the world lives. I find it interesting when people refer to urban stories as “gritty” when really, they’re just writing about how life is (are people that read books really that middle class?) These stories are ripe with life, joy, death and I jumped greedily from one to the next. Highly, highly recommend – and to find out more about the man and how this book was a bitch to write, check out this interview here.