Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Title: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Genre: fiction
Rating:

What they said: Links to reviews

What I say:

Have you ever loved a book so much that you were afraid to read another? Foer's first novel, Everything is Illuminated, was that book for me. Cracking the cover of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close brought both excitement and trepidation: Would it be as good? Could it be? Extremely & Incredibly, this book made me laugh even while tearing me to pieces.

There is a secret. And there is a key. A key without a lock. Young Oskar sets out to find the door that holds the lock that fits the key, and in so doing opens hearts, tales, truths that had been long sealed. And the secret is kept and released, guarded and set free.

This is one of the first few books written along the post-9/11 theme -- bold, beautiful and scary.
The author approaches tragedy with a child's eyes, and tries to find understandable answers to questions that can't ever be phrased. He seeks to find a home for our insecurities and neuroticisms by exposing those of others. He evokes sympathy for eccentricities and proves the strangeness of normalcy.

As in his first novel, Foer's characters are poignantly flawed, tragically human, and wrapped in poetry. They radiate fragility and resiliance, are breaking, broken, and also mending themselves and each other.