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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Book of the week


I would first and foremost like to thank the sponsors of this post:
1. A bag of carnival cotton candy which lead to an intense sugar high, and a crash that ended in a three hour nap circa 5:30pm.
2. An intense morning of non-committal cleaning which resulted in me inhaling a significant amount of oven cleaner.

So basically, I have abandoned the cleaning (hence the non-committal part) and I can't sleep because I overdosed on cotton candy. Yay.

Point of the post:
I have re-kindled (some pun intended) my obsession with reading books. This week's book is: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

I bought this book and literally read it in two days. The story follows a boy named Oskar Schell who is coping with the loss of his father on September 11. Oskar is inquisitive and adventurous and used to solve puzzles his father created for him. One day, he finds a key and goes on a clue hunt through New York City.

The author, Jonathan Saffron Froer did a beautiful job of weaving multiple complicated story lines and moves seamlessly between Oskar and his adult relatives and their respective roles. The best part is that he gives you little sprinkles to connect pieces of the story but the whole picture doesn't come together until the end, as a bittersweet but beautiful cupcake.

The reason I like this book so much was because it reminds me that the world is a big, beautiful, scary place when you are 11 and that somehow over time we lose this desire to connect with strangers and become self absorbed and paranoid. It is also an elegant portrayal of how differently we deal with tragedy and loss yet we still move forward.

I give this book 4 1/2 bags of cotton candy out of 5, mostly because this is my first book review and I don't want to appear too generous.