Book Review: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

So, I have a goal to read at least 40 books this year. This would be between 3 and 4 each month. I thought I would help keep myself on track using Goodreads and by blogging about a few of them here.  "Incredibly Loud & Extremely Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer is actually the third book I've read so far this year.

This was one of those randomly chosen off the shelf books that turned out to be a great find. It is written from the perspective of Oskar Schnell, a nine year old boy whose father has recently died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Now, when I say it is written from his perspective, I mean, literally as if you are inside his head. Very stream-of-consciousness. And the stream of a smart, imaginative, young, and grieving little boy's consciousness is strange and sometimes hard to follow. When I started the book, I didn't think that I was going to be able to deal with the style, but after a chapter or so, I started to understand better and really got into it. (It helped that I think many of my past students must think this way, too!) This is definitely not a pick up/put down for 5 minutes at a time book, but it is SOOO worth the effort.

Just because this novel deals with 9/11 doesn't mean it is completely depressing, trust me! I don't want to give away a lot about the plot, but I do want to say that I laughed out loud several times and cried at least twice. This little boy is so innocent and also so deeply scarred by his father's death. Foer does a brilliant job of seamlessly mixing all these emotions that are so huge for such a little guy. His quest to find the lock that fits a key his father left behind takes him all over New York city and into contact with so many interesting characters along the way. Two thumbs up and high praise for this one!