Status Updates From Everything is Illuminated

I am completely over sexualizing minors for quirky shock value. I literally do not understand the meaning of this practice. What did Foer think it would ignite in the reader's mind, to read about an old widow riding a ten year old boy? It eludes me completely, I read these passages and I'm left baffled by the sheer emptiness of it with absolutely no added value to it.

This book kept reminding me of Gabriel
García Márquez… lo and behold, after a quick Google search, this is definitely magical realism.

Stephen King wrote himself into his own novels, author as manifestation of cosmic imperative, and it was less grating than this 2 sentence mention of the Great and Tragic Burden of Writerly Fate.
Some of that may have been from how his own characters weren't impressed and clearly thought he was a jagoff.