Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in Around the World in 80 Books

Nov 24, 2009 Jimmie rated it it was amazing

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I absolutely loved this book. It made me laugh and cry all at the same time. Seeing 9/11 and its affects through the eyes of this intelligent (if not peculiar) little boy makes the reader think back to their childhoods and how they would have handled a similar situation. The characters in this novel remind the reader of true people one would meet any day on the street. Put yourself in Oskar Schell's shoes; You won't regret it. ...more

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Jan 08, 2014 marianne rated it really liked it

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This is a beautiful novel about love, war, loss and our fragile human relationships. I absolutely loved it in parts, but I also felt was a few edits short of being that amazing book it was so, erm, incredibly close to and capable of being. This could have very well been the novel to 9/11 that Slaughterhouse Five was to the bombing of Dresden. It just kills me that it didn't quite make the cut.

In short, the story follows a quirky 9 year old boy who is trying to process the death of his father in This is a beautiful novel about love, war, loss and our fragile human relationships. I absolutely loved it in parts, but I also felt was a few edits short of being that amazing book it was so, erm, incredibly close to and capable of being. This could have very well been the novel to 9/11 that Slaughterhouse Five was to the bombing of Dresden. It just kills me that it didn't quite make the cut.

In short, the story follows a quirky 9 year old boy who is trying to process the death of his father in the 9/11 attacks, and the physical and emotional journey that he embarks upon to that end. The book is written from young Oskar's perspective, as well as that of his grandparents, whose survival of the firebombing of Dresden is a secondary if not parallel plot to the story.

Foer unfolds the plot with near perfect timing for the first half of the book, and there are great themes that are woven throughout the narrative, such as silence, heaviness, birds and flying. Oskar is an immediately likable character whose narrative style reads easily and sweetly from the very beginning. The grandparents, however, were less convincing. I found it hard to fully believe in their "Nothing" and "Something" spaces and their awkward dance around silence. I also slowly began to resent what I felt was the grandfather's lack of courage and his inability to move on with his life, instead of feeling more compassion for the terrible twist of fate his life had succumbed to.

Foer may not have won me over with these particular character traits, but he really got me with his genius ability to convey the depths of Oskar's rawest feelings and the acts of love and compassion in many of the relationships. It all comes together in a heart-wrenching climax that is just so damn rich in human emotion and sentiment. I don't remember the last book I read that made me cry like this.

It's clear that Foer loves Oskar very much, with all of his heart. And naturally, so do I. For that reason, and because the book is essentially about love, I can forgive it for its less-than-perfect points. ...more

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Mar 10, 2009 silly_soup rated it liked it

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Even now, I want to convince myself that I loved this book. I finished it just a few hours ago, and it did move me, but the conclusion of the plot felt haphazard and unworthy of the really moving development of the protagonist, Oskar. There were a lot of beautiful moments in this book, lots of provocative symbols, and several really convincing characters. My issue with it is that there were several hundred pages of build-up to what felt like something that was going to be a great story, and then ...more

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