Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Spoilers)

[sawyerthedestroyer]

I just finished it this morning.

I don't want to call it interesting when it's a book about grief, albeit fictional characters', surrounding a major real-world tragedy. The story seemed to be all over the place at first, it slowly came together, but I had a lot of "Who cares?" moments.

It's a very heavy topic as is and I often felt like the author was intentionally pushing the story to be even deeper and over the reader's head than needed. Every single character came across as an eccentric intellectual, living in odd places, doing extremely odd things. The random photos of random things popping up in the middle of sentences, I get it, I get why he did it, but it was odd nonetheless and just added to my impression that the author was trying too hard. I haven't read anything else by Jonathan Safran Foer so maybe he's always like that. Maybe I'm just dumb and a lot of it was over my head; I don't like books like that and I didn't particularly like this one.

As a side note, I read this on the Kindle and there are parts of the story that are told as letters one character is writing to another. The letters are images with very tiny text so I couldn't adjust the font size. Those were a major PITA to read, which just added to my frustration with the book.

I guess there isn't a real point to this post. I just wanted to bitch for a little bit.

[lemondrop]

I had a hard time getting into the book because I didn't really care for the MC. I had a love/hate relationship througout the book. I found him simultaneously endearing and irritating.

I did think the story was beautiful and well-written albeit a little unexpected.

[angnshaun]

i didnt have a hard time getting into it. I loved the beginning... I did have a hard time following in the middle. I was wondering when everything would tie in.

[EllieArroway]

May 25, 2012 11:09:11 GMT -5 sawyerthedestroyer said:

The random photos of random things popping up in the middle of sentences, I get it, I get why he did it, but it was odd nonetheless and just added to my impression that the author was trying too hard.

I totally agree with this. The whole book felt very "gimmicky" to me. I felt like the author relied on his 'quirky' style of writing and the emotional reaction that people have to 9/11. Honestly, if the tragedy of the book had been anything other than 9/11 would anyone have liked it at all?

[angnshaun]

May 25, 2012 12:23:21 GMT -5 EllieArroway said:

May 25, 2012 11:09:11 GMT -5 sawyerthedestroyer said:

The random photos of random things popping up in the middle of sentences, I get it, I get why he did it, but it was odd nonetheless and just added to my impression that the author was trying too hard.

I totally agree with this. The whole book felt very "gimmicky" to me. I felt like the author relied on his 'quirky' style of writing and the emotional reaction that people have to 9/11. Honestly, if the tragedy of the book had been anything other than 9/11 would anyone have liked it at all?

I would have. I really didnt think it had much in it about 9/11. It could have been any other accident as far as im concerned.

[lemondrop]

May 25, 2012 12:34:56 GMT -5 angnshaun said:

May 25, 2012 12:23:21 GMT -5 EllieArroway said:

I totally agree with this. The whole book felt very "gimmicky" to me. I felt like the author relied on his 'quirky' style of writing and the emotional reaction that people have to 9/11. Honestly, if the tragedy of the book had been anything other than 9/11 would anyone have liked it at all?

I would have. I really didnt think it had much in it about 9/11. It could have been any other accident as far as im concerned.

I agree. I think he could have used a fictional trajedy, and I would have still liked the book.

[msmerymac]

I don't think he used 9/11 in a bad way at all. The author is from NY. It's something that affects many NYers on a daily basis, even now, and he was writing about that. If he just used a random tragedy, like the father drowning or dying in a car accident, it wouldn't have tied into to communal feel of NYC, IMO.

That said... yes, the author's style is always like that. It's quirky. All of his characters are quirky. Whether they are too quirky is up for your interpretation, but his novel before ELaIC, Everything is Illuminated, is honestly one of my favorite books. The writing is similar, it's partially about a similarly heavy topic (antisemitism and the Holocaust) but I thought it was amazing. And really funny. While ELaIC was humorous at times, I think maybe it was a bit too heavy to be considered a "funny" book.

[lemondrop]

May 25, 2012 14:44:22 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

I don't think he used 9/11 in a bad way at all. The author is from NY. It's something that affects many NYers on a daily basis, even now, and he was writing about that. If he just used a random tragedy, like the father drowning or dying in a car accident, it wouldn't have tied into to communal feel of NYC, IMO.

That said... yes, the author's style is always like that. It's quirky. All of his characters are quirky. Whether they are too quirky is up for your interpretation, but his novel before ELaIC, Everything is Illuminated, is honestly one of my favorite books. The writing is similar, it's partially about a similarly heavy topic (antisemitism and the Holocaust) but I thought it was amazing. And really funny. While ELaIC was humorous at times, I think maybe it was a bit too heavy to be considered a "funny" book.

This one is on my TR list as well.

I think 9/11 was an important part of the book, but he didn't use it to garner sympathy. I do think he could have used another trajedy, whether real of fictional, because the book is mainly about how the family responded to it.

[sparrowsong]

I was disappointed by Extremely Loud, probably largely because I LOVED Everything is Illuminated so much, and it just didn't measure up to that imo. It was a while ago I read it now, but I just found it kind of boring honestly, which surprised me given the subject and setting. But it was just.... blah. I book I made myself finish, but just was not into at all.

[sporklemotion]

I loved this book, and ugly-cried through most of it, but I think I was actually more drawn in by the story of the grandparents than by Oscar-- their isolation and loneliness just resonated with me. I also preferred Everything is Illuminated to this one, because I think it brought in more quirkiness and humor despite its heavy subject matter.