I tried reading the book but I was caught up by the references made to local New Jersey references. I live by the old Amboy Cinemas mentioned in the novel. The novelist was raised only a few miles at London Terrace Apartment Complex in Old Bridge. We shared the same library. Junot Diaz has been nominated twice for the New Jersey Hall of Fame recently for his services to literature. This novel has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and it is richly deserved.