Reading the last paragraph of this book will have you conclude that it's a love story. Which it is, to a certain extent, but not only. While the thread linking the various parts of the book is ostensibly about a boy's (eventually young man) search for someone to share his heart with, there's a parallel story, mostly running through the footnotes, about the Dominican Republic's history of violence, poverty and dictatorship.

While the romance element carries a rich humourous vein, the reader quickly sobers up to the harsh realities of life as lived by Oscar, the main character of the story, and his relatives. It is this playing with emotions which made me uncomfortable; one moment I was laughing out loud and by the next page I had sunk into a brooding empathy.

However, did I detect a mix up in characters ( should be uncle rather than brother) towards the end?

My rating: 8/10