Hello, all! If you haven't heard of this book before, it was turned into a movie a few years back. I have yet to see the movie, but always kept it in the back of my mind because I liked the name. This summer, I got onto Amazon to watch the movie and saw that it was based off a book. Being who I am, I couldn't watch the movie without reading the book first! And I'm glad that I did.
Published in 2005, this 326 page story revolves around a young boy named Oskar Schnell who's father died in 9/11. It is told in the perspective of Oskar, his grandmother, and his grandmother's husband who left before Oskar's father was born. As the book progresses, we learn more and more about his grandmother and grandfather, and also about how Oskar is handling his fathers death.
The main action of the book focuses on Oskar searching for the lock of an old key he found in his father's closet goes to. He meets a lot of interesting people with different stories to tell. Flipping through the book and hearing that many characters would be introduced, I thought there would be a chapter or so dedicated to each person and their story. I was wrong, but it works for the plot. It revolves around Oskar, not the other people.
The writing style of the book itself takes a bit of getting used to. Oskar's chapters are told in the way a child would explain things. Keeping on one track of a thought, and the next sentence is something unrelated. While the narration is just for Oskar specifically, his grandmother and grandfather contribute through letters. The text reflects their individual writing styles. In one chapter, the grandfather recounts the bombings in Germany and very seldom uses periods, instead using commas. This choice by Foer had the effect that the grandfather had to keep going. Only pausing, never stopping.
"I remember losing my balance, I remember a single thought in my head: Keep thinking. As long as I am thinking, I am alive, but at some point I stopped thinking, the next thing I remember is feeling terribly cold, I realized I was lying on the ground, the pain was complete, it let me know I hadn't died..."
This book has the most unique writing style I've seen in a while. It's told in three different voices of fully developed characters, intertwined together. At first they don't connect at all, and I could have sworn it was random letters from the people Oskar was meeting. But a quarter of the way and the pieces begin to come together. It's an easy book to read, even though it switches between three voices, and quick, too. I'd recommend it to those that enjoy creative non-fiction, plausible fiction, and love a book that makes you say "No, way, what?! Hold up, did that just happen? What is even happening here?"
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