Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran FoerMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
The most precocious nine-year-old on the planet is interviewing every person with the last name of Black in NYC. Why? His father, who died in the WTC tragedy, left a blue vase in his closet. The vase held a key in a small brown envelope with the word "black" on it. The boy assumes that "black" refers to a person's last name hence the interviews. He is convinced that locating this person will lead to finding out exactly how his father really died or what the key is for.
The story line was very disjointed and felt gimmicky. As others have said, this author has a significant amount of linguistic muscle without almost no craft. The repetitive phrases were so annoying (If I hear "heavy boots" one more time - AGH!) The Sunday School platitudes are equally as grating....whenever the author writes something that he finds "beautiful" and "true", he congratulates himself on his brilliance and tells us that that thing is "beautiful" and "true." The entire book reeks of such unearned profundity. I wanted to love this book but found it Extremely Irritating and Incredibly Boring.
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