Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer
Synopsis (as taken from Goodreads):  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.

S’s Rating: ❤❤❤❤ (out of five hearts)
D’s Rating: ❤❤❤  (out of five hearts)

S’s Thoughts:

Welcome to the first ever “Sister Read” post for our blog, Two Sisters Reading.  You can catch up on what this blog is actually about here on the welcome post.

Well, let’s jump right in!  July’s Sister Read, and our first ever, was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.  It’s a book that I’ve been wanting to read for a long time and finally got around to and it seemed like a good book for D and I to share.

Sometimes a book comes along that sends your heart into your teeth from the first page and ELIC was one of those books for me.  I think by the time I was five pages in I felt like crying.  Like a lot of people, I remember 9/11 vividly.  I remember where I was, what I was wearing and who I was with when the tv was turned on to the news as the second plane hit.  Fortunately I didn’t have a personal connection to the tragedy but like the rest of the country I mourned.  I still can’t watch documentaries on 9/11 without crying and feeling that grief.  Going into this knowing that Oskar’s father died in one of the towers I should have known that I would be teary eyed off and on throughout the book.

ELIC wasn’t an easy read for me, both for the emotional nature of the book but also because it can be a bit hard to follow, especially when it comes to conversations between characters.  Foer doesn’t like using the standard “he said,” “character x asked” and instead just streams it all into the paragraph separating dialogue out with just quotation marks.  It sometimes got  a bit confusing.  

So what did I like about the book?  I liked that it was current and still relevant.  I loved Oskar and all of the Blacks.  Oskar was probably one of the most endearing characters I’ve ever come across in a book; he was honest to a fault but I couldn’t help but love him and his crazy inventions.  All of the characters were unforgettable and so dynamic; Grandma was a tie with Oskar for my favourite.  The pictures throughout the book were also really interesting and well tied in with the story.

What didn’t I like about the book?  I’ve touched on the dialogue bit though I can’t say I didn’t like it.  It was just different, really.  I have to say I didn’t care for the ending too much.  Without ruining it, I felt like Oskar deserved a bit more than what he got.  I also found it a bit odd, implausible even, how the various Blacks interacted with Oskar seemingly off the bat.  It didn’t ring true for me; I just can’t imagine complete strangers speaking so candidly with a child.

Out of five hearts I rated ELIC with four stars.  Other than the ending and the interactions between Oskar and the Blacks, this book was close to perfect for me.  I’ll be honest though, it is extremely rare when I rate a book five out of five.

Standout Quotes:

“I thought about life, about my life, the embarrassments, the little coincidences, the shadows of alarm clocks on bedside tables.  I thought about my small victories and everything I’d seen destroyed...” “We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families, and our friends, and even the people who aren’t on our lists, people we’ve never met but still want to protect.  We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.”

Album to listen to while reading this book:  “Begin to Hope” by Regina Spektor

D’s Thoughts:

When S first suggested the book, I was really excited. I generally love books that I think might make me cry. However, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close didn't have as much of an impact on me as I'd hoped.
This might be partially be because I, unlike S, don't remember 9/11. At all. I had turned 4 years old less than two months beforehand, and while S can affirm that I have a ridiculous memory (or at least I claimed to have one when I was younger), I remember absolutely nothing of it. My first recollection of even knowing of the event was when I read a National Geographic Kids magazine about New York City or something of that nature when I was six or seven. I suppose that due to my age, I can't hurt like most of my country. It really would have helped while reading this book.
This is not to say that I wasn't touched at all! Oskar had a unique way of telling his story and showing us how he viewed everything: through inventions and childish hope. One of my favorite things about this book is that the phrase "September 11th" is not used at all in the first two-thirds of the book, and it's only used once toward the end. Oskar was able to tell us exactly what had happened--"the towers fell"--without having to use a worn-out phrase with less of a connotation of grief than the idea of towers falling with hundreds still inside.
So, what was it that I didn't like? The dialogue, as S said, was a bit confusing at times. In addition, the book changes perspective every couple of chapters. The first few times we were introduced to the other narrators, we really had no idea of who they were or how they were related in any way to Oskar's story. Additionally, I didn't really understand how some of Oskar's actions, such as his super-secret-and-not-spoiled activity with the renter at the end of the book, went completely unpunished. There is a drastic lack of anyone acting upon anger in this book, and it feels a bit unnatural.
I would have to disagree with S and, without giving it all away, say that I liked the ending. It is realistic: quite simply, not every journey ends with something spectacular, but I think that the final scene with his mother gave him everything he had searched for: love.

Standout Quotes:
"When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much...I spent my life learning to feel less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness."

"I knew that we were sharing something with our eyes, but I didn't know what, and I didn't know if it mattered."

"I wish I were a poet...I've spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind's eye. It's been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I've been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers. But I wish I were a poet."
Album to listen to while reading this book: "Recovering the Satellites" by Counting Crows (A lack of sleep is a huge motif in this book, and "I'm Not Sleeping" is conveniently on this album.)

Well, I suppose that's all for this month! Between our monthly shared books, we will both additionally review one book that we've read independently. Finally, at the end of each month, we will post our "book wrap-ups" (which you can see examples of on S's other blog here) to summarize all that we've read! August’s book is D’s choice and is Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.
See you soon! S & D