By Junot Diaz

Winner of both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, this highly praised smash hit of 2007 follows the adventures of a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd plagued by a family curse.  I read most of it on a cross-country flight, and found myself really caring about the characters and their Dominican Republican heritage and culture.  Diaz uses his hilarious sense of humor and street Spanglish to bring this story to life.       ~Reviewed by Gayle Wingerter