Exactly how steamy is this story?
NC-17
No two ways about it: there's a lot of sex in this book. At one point in the novel, a character says that sex is the part of Dominican culture that never goes away. The characters in Wao live up to that stereotype. Why?
Because Díaz wants to deconstruct gender and sexuality norms in the Dominican Republic. So he grants every major character at least one sex scene. Some get two or more.
Plus, the book mixes sex with violence (and a whole lot of four-letter words). Violence is another part of Dominican culture and history and Diaz explores without flinching. All in all, we'd say that Wao is not a book for the very young or very the faint-of-heart… or stomach.