Skip to main content

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close By Jonathan Safran Foer

Synopsis: Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York.
His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11.
This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey...
This is a new favorite (maybe even my very favorite). What an incredible, thought-provoking book! It not only made me cry, but it also made me laugh out loud as well. It was a bittersweet story of a child with a brilliant mind, a broken heart, and an injured soul that desperately seeks for a way to deal with his tremendous loss.
I have to say that in the beginning of the book, I found it hard to follow. The narrative was confusing as it changes from one character to another without warning or explanation. The first time I tried to read this book, I actually gave up and read something else. I wouldn't want this to cause anyone to give up all together, so let me explain - This book is not just about Oskar, but also about his grandparents as well. The narrative jumps between Oskar, his Grandfather & his Grandmother. I wasn't aware of that and it confused me. That being said, once I got used to the narrative, I thought the author told the story with wisdom and insights that were profound & beautiful. It was truly a superb & unforgettable book!
Check it out on Amazon.com by clicking the title above or on Amazon.co.uk by clicking here

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Top 20 Lists

Recently, a magazine here in the UK issued their list of their Top 100 women in show business. This sparked conversation between Wayne and I and one rainy weekend when we had nothing to do, we compiled our own Top 20 lists. The rules were we had to judge on looks alone (not their physique) and only one token model was allowed. For fun, I thought I'd add our lists here for you to view and enjoy. Maybe it will even spark conversation between you and a friend or loved one. Wayne and I actually had a really good time creating our lists together - judging each other's taste in the opposite sex and laughing over how long it took for us to prioritize our selections. We still change the order every time we look at it! (although our top five have remained the same) Enjoy and feel free to comment!

Fight Club for Five Year Olds - Part 2

The other mother and I went into the school to meet with the teacher and the assistant head.  We both let them know how upset we were that we were not informed that our children were sent to the office and how much we were against the children being allowed to play fighting games on the playground.  I told them I wouldn't allow it at home and I'm really unhappy that it's being allowed at school.  They admitted it was a problem and explained that they are planning to introduce a a scheme to teach the children to play in a safe way.  They will be calling it 'Super Hero Training'.  They plan to give out capes & masks out to children who behave well as rewards at playtime.  They will have assemblies where they will teach the children to play fighting games without making contact.  I find this to be absurd.  The problem has gone on to long and I doubt they will be able to teach little children to change their games when they have sixty other childr...

Attitude adjustment...

It's been a while since I blogged regularly. I guess I've been going by the rule - if you don't have anything nice to say - don't say anything at all. I hate 'woe is me' type entries and for the last month or so, I've been really down and haven't had anything good to say. I think it started with the news that Aniela (my fellow expat girlfriend) was moving back to the US and was exacerbated by the incident with Wayne's cousin and the flare up of my condition (along with a general feeling of homesickness & loneliness). I was really depressed for quite a few weeks there and haven't been doing much more than going to the gym and other random things to keep me busy during the day. I haven't even worked on my web classes (in any serious way) in weeks (probably because I can't concentrate when I'm in pain - never mind get very motivated). I'm not so down anymore. Maybe it's the sunshine. Maybe it's the fact that I'...