The structure that this book is written in reminds me of the numerous changing perspectives in Lucifer’s Hammer. It is very irritating to have the story be told out of order and it takes a while to figure out whose life we are suddenly thrown into. However, this kind of structure could be said to attribute to a causal relationship in the characters in the sense that first we are introduced the characters and then when we read deeper into the story, we come to realize how and why the characters became what they are when we first meet them. A good example of this is Oscar and Lola’s mother.
The novel does a really good job with engaging the reader in the book, even though there are many political contexts within the story that might have otherwise made the tone more serious. The author manages to do this by bringing up the familiar: nerdiness. While many people who know nothing of Trujillo or the Dominican government, or spanish, which comes up alot throughout the narrative, might be confused at times, the nerdy references help make the narrative more understandable. A majority of the things that are difficult to understand are made clear through analogies to fantasy stories, many from Tolkein. Also, this is the first time I’ve encountered footnotes like the ones in this book. Footnotes usually have a very formal, informative, and factual tone, but the footnotes in this book are extremely informal and somewhat hilarious. Therefore, they also contribute towards the reader’s interest in the novel.
I also find the female characters in this book to be very strong in the narration, especially Lola and her mother. Their life story illuminates deeper than Oscar’s, whose narrative mostly deals with his quest to find love, and his obsession with nerdiness and all things Tolkien. I was shocked to find later on that all this narration was done through one of Lola’s boyfriends, which for the most part explains the informal tone. I have yet to finish the book, but it will be interesting to see where all of this ends up heading.