It's sorta a spoiler.
My second favorite book in the entire world is called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Now, I'm really stubborn, opinionated, and picky when it comes to my reading. I keep to something I like. Frankly I like it. Or I don't. This doesn't mean that I think some of the books I don't like are bad. They might just not be right for me. For example; In kindergarten, I stuck to Henry and Mudge, and Calvin and Hobbes. I couldn't read any other book because no other book gave me the same experience, it just wasn't the same. Like paper to glue I was attached to those books. Absolutely, utterly, positively impossible to rip apart without the other side clinging on tight-an end product of bits and scraps of useless lint.- Then, somewhere between second and third grade came Geronimo books. Soon after I graduated to Louis Lowery. (her entire collection) Then came Sammy keys' books and mysteries. I read all the Harry Potters, and finally now. A somewhat less interesting category; Creative non-fiction. My all time favorite books. From Life of Pi to Water for Elephants, And sometimes I'll jump to a book like Love That Dog.
Extremely loud and incredibly close. This was a book about the search for closure.
It followed the lives of two and a half-(ish) boys. Oscar who believes that a single word and key will lead him to his dead father. A grandfather (Thomas Schell) who missed out on his sons' life. And a father who loved his son and died in nine eleven. (Before the book begins) His name was Thomas shell(Jr). However; this book mainly followed the life of Oscar Schell, who goes threw two years of grieving and coping with his fathers death. I believe that he is the hero in this story. He grows up quite a great deal and goes threw lots of different changes. He meets hundreds of people and changes hundreds of lives.
A more effective way to describe Oscar Schell is as a nine year old boy with special needs. He is incredibly mature and incredibly bright for his age. He is constantly inventing, and thinking, and imagining. Never. Not once in this book, did he ever loosen his loyalty to his father.
The shape shifter in this book was grandfather Thomas Schell. He was always sorry. Sorry he wasn't there when people needed him. He was a man that would close himself off from people. He was selfish and fragile after his old life. The grandfather never stopped loving Anna. This is the only thing that didn't change about him throughout his whole life. I thought this was kinda interesting and worth thinking about considering where it leads him in the book. I thought the fact that he couldn't speak was very interesting about him too. It made him sorta vulnerable to other people. It meant he couldn't scream. . .
The shadow in the book was hopelessness. Hopelessness overwhelmed almost every character in this book. It made these people slow down and feel low. It made Oscar give up on his list of people named Black. It made Oscars' mother give up on her search to find her husband. It dawned on the grandmother, and the grandfather too.
Finally, the mentor. The majority of characters in this book were adults. I was always waiting to know who Oscar's friends were, and at least what their names were.I guess i hadn't really noticed this until now but the author never let me know who Oscars' friends were. They had nicknames, but i can't remember what they were. They were only mentioned like twice in the book.
Anyway, I just feel that most, if not all the grownups in this book-except the mother- were mentors in this book. At least, all the grownups tried to help Oscar in some way. Mr. Black helped Oscar look for more people with the last name Black. The grandfather seemed to want to be Oscar's mentor but couldn't. And finally, there was the grandmother. She seemed to care about Oscar more than anybody else. But that might just be because she needed someone to love. Not just Oscar, but her husband too.
This was the first book I've seen in a long time with pictures in it. I guess that this would be because most children's books have pictures in it, and pictures in a more advanced book gave it a scrap of innocence to it. It possibly gave the ending a lot of weight to it. Being that everyone wanted things to go backwards. Then having Oscar imagining this too. It made me feel guilty that somehow this world has left a nine year old exposed to this situation. But the pictures made it real again. It snapped me out of just a different world far, far away. And it brought me home. Because that boy would be almost my age, he lives in my city. I can see all the things he does.
This book gives me heavy boots.
