Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Beautiful novel, very well written.

This novel is beautiful. The writing is done at a very high level. As others have pointed out, the book switches perspectives often, going from Oskar's POV to letters to his grandparents'. I've read that some found this confusing, but I was never confused at all. I found it very easy to follow. I'm a writing and English Lit student, and this was on par with many of the classics that I've had to read for school. The literary gimmicks were effective more often than not, although some of them didn't need to be in there. They didn't bother me though, I just thought that the writer was being creative and trying something different, which I never think is a bad thing. If the gimmicks were in a poorly written novel I might have a problem with them, but the writing in this book is so well done that the author can throw in the blank pages and pictures and get away with it. It does not take away from the story, and in many places makes it better. Many reviewers are saying that the book is contrived. I disagree. First of all, fiction is always "contrived" on some level. However, I think that the people who have problems with the voice and characters in this novel aren't picking up on everything. Every main character in this book has been touched deeply by devestating tragedy, the grandparents twice. When things of the magnitude happen, people react in their own ways. I didn't find the grandparents' behavior unbelievable at all, I found it very believable. If they had been normal people who had never been involved in such horrific events, I would say it wasn't believable. Same thing with Oskar. Also, Oskar obviously has some type of Autism. This explains his high intelligence and quirks. He isn't a normal child. All of the main characters in this book are lost people. This novel is very emotional, I didn't find it sentimental, but emotional. Perhaps some readers didn't like it because they don't like sad stories. Perhaps some are too used to reading on a lower level and read...