Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Summary (from the publisher): Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey.

Review: This is the story of Oskar Schell. He is an inventor, a jewelry designer, jewelry fabricator, amateur entolomologist, francophile, vegan, origamist, pacifist, percussionist, amateur astronomer, computer consultant, amateur archeologist, and collector of rare coins, butterflies that died natural deaths, miniature cacti, Beatles memorabilia, semiprecious stones, and other things. He is nine years old and his father died in 9/11. Oskar's story of grief and a search for understanding deeply affected me. There's a lot of great one liners in here that stop you in your tracks. One critic says that Foer can "place his reader's hand on the heart of human experience" and I have to agree. I'm excited to see what the movie will be like.

Stars: 4