The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

While Yunior remains the narrator, his tone becomes far more casual as he recounts his own involvement with the de León family. Yunior meets Lola during their freshman year at Rutgers-New Brunswick. The following year, they have a three-night romantic fling that she ends because she has a boyfriend. They remain friends, however, and in 1988, when Yunior is jumped by some townies and badly beaten, Lola is the only one who comes through for him, cooking and cleaning as he recovers from his injuries. Thus, he feels he owes her a debt.

At the end of that semester, Yunior hears that Lola’s brother, Oscar, almost killed himself over a girl by drinking two bottles of 151. To Lola’s great surprise, Yunior offers to live with Oscar in Demarest Hall to keep an eye on him while she studies abroad in Spain.

Despite the fact that they are both creative writing students, Yunior and Oscar have almost nothing in common. Yunior is a weightlifter who can bench 340 pounds and who regularly dates two or three women at a time. Oscar, meanwhile, remains isolated, unable to attract women, and overweight—he is now over 300 pounds.