Wednesday, July 8, 2009

BOOK: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is the insanely unique story of a precocious 9 year old boy named Oskar who has lost his father in the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks on the Twin Towers.

I read Safran Foer's debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated, a few years ago and found it amazingly inventive, although challenging to follow at times unless it was read in large chunks of time, like on a trans-Atlantic flight, for instance. I found this, his second book, published in 2005, in the school library while during a lull in Parent/Teacher Conferences and was instantly hooked yet again.

While both books have a certain amount of fantastical whimsy in them, this one stays a little closer to reality than the first novel. The dialog and thought process that Safran Foer has used to capture that weird uber-smart kid that sat next to you in fourth grade and asked the questions that kept you from getting to lunch or recess on time is genius.

The other characters that surround Oskar, his Grandma, mother, upstairs neighbor, doorman, as well as relatives from the past, are all worthy of an invitation to dinner. At the end of each chapter I kept changing my mind about who I liked the best!

Sergio del Limónar

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