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Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Dimension: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
Weight: 1.4 pounds.

Not for Everyone
Foer's first book, Everything is Illuminated was the kind of novel that either worked for people, or it didn't. Hence the reviews varying from one star to five.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is similar, and if you enjoyed the first book,... more

READ THE BOOK!
This is one of those books that just has to be read. Nothing but reading can explain why it's so wonderful . Summaries won't tell you anything real about it. Reviews won't tell you anything real about it. It's an experience. I hadn't read Foer's... more

A lasting work of art
It is a testament to how serious a work of art "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" is that people are so passionate about it---both positively and negatively. Its newness, its incredible energy and inventiveness and risk-taking make it easy to fall in... more

The Problem is the Lack of Inventiveness
There are a few hot headed reviews below, who, in response to some of the negative reviews posted here (as well as in response to negative reviews in The NewYorker-- by John Updike-- and in The New York Observer) have lashed out angrily, saying that these... more

Please, Mommy, make the bad clown stop
I implore anyone who enjoyed, or found meaning, in this book -- or, for that matter, is considering purchasing it -- to find themselves a copy of "See Under:Love" (or, frankly, anything David Grossman has ever written) and discover that from which Foer... more

Only half finished, and, sadly, wising I was already done
Here's my problem. I think the character of Oskar, while a bit annoying at times (as all 9-year-olds can be), is overall a wonderful read, and the perfect foil for a tragedy such as 9/11. But the rest of the narratives -- the letters from the grandfather... more

Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud
I, Bobby Cho, resident of Los Angeles, California, do hereby award the Robert H. Cho Citation of Merit for Fiction Authors to Jonathan Safran Foer on this 23rd day of March, 2005.

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Brilliant ; I cannot recommend this highly enough

This novel is every bit as powerful as Foer's EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED (2002), which is one of the five best novels I have ever read. The reader is drawn into Oskar's story immediately, into his heart, and into the hearts of those close to him... more

Here we go again
A perceptive Amazon reviewer of Foer's last book pointed out that many of the conceits of that novel were, shall we say, "borrowed" from David Grossman's See Under: Love. It appears that Foer read this and decided: "They wanna see plagiarism? I'll show... more

Extremely Good & Incredibly Inventive
This may be the first great novel written about September eleventh. Foer invents a great central character - Oskar Schell, an eight-year-old Manhattan boy whose father has died in the World Trade Center. He finds a key in an envelope in his father's... more

mr updike missed the point and botched the facts ...
...in reviewing this mind bendingly compelling novel in a recent New Yorker:

#1. Buckminster is not a dog, he is a pussy, as any of Oskar's nine year old tormentors could have told him.

and

#2 I think grandmother's... more

Extremely Odd and Incredibly Great
Without a doubt, this book is weird. The cover is almost like a suitcase; crammed inside are all sorts of items from each of the book's three narrators. Together, these items reveal a family whose fabric has been torn twice by tragic events--first the... more

Fooie!
What a disappointing puerile cartoon this book is. It is an insult to the gravity of 9/11 and its meaning. The cloying Oskar is the most annoyingly obnoxious juvenile charachter in history. I wish there was a "no star" choice.

If you want... more

Read this one already
The writing is lovely, the insights are sharp, the humor is refreshing. Those who can only criticize it by attacking the author ("too young, too privileged, too inexperienced") prove only that they hate the imagination. The book is precise and moving... more

Made me laugh -- moved me to tears (5+ stars!)
I don't know how the Jonathan Safran Foer is able to bring so much joy and sadness into a book. It's amazing. In the first chapter alone I was laughing hysterically, and calling friends to read them parts aloud, but also, toward the end, crying. Somehow... more

A WORK OF ART
I'm not even sure this book is a book, but I know I love it.

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Wonderful
This book is about a young boy's search for meaning after his father died in the September 11 attacks on New York. But that's not really what it's about. Really it's about things we all know about and feel: loneliness, the need to say things we aren't... more

To Mr. The New York Observer says...
I get backlash: it's easy, de rigeur. But you say: "the triangle of who the author is, what he is writing about, and what the end result is-- and, as the Observer puts it-- the unreality and tackiness of that end result. The author is in a priveleged... more

The next Catcher in the Rye?
This book is destined to be a classic. It's so imaginative, so full of heart, so funny. I gave the book to my daughter when I finished it. She's a freshman in high school and after only a few chapters she's already loving it. When she's done I'm... more

Ten Stars Is Not Enough
I laughed, cried, and sniffled my way through this book, which I began reading as I walked to the checkout counter and continued to read on the street, in the subway, at the grocery store, while I bathed my six-month-old son, as I cooked supper, as I... more

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