Pajiba

This book is extremely engrossing and incredibly well-written, though it did give me heavy boots.

I'm buying this today. Your review hit all the points that attract me to a book.

THIS IS THE BOOK I PASS OUT COPIES OF. Then I tell them to buy Everything Is Illuminated if they love it, and keep passing them on.
I never thought I would have such admiration for a living author.

I forgot to describe the why- my favorite part is one of the improbable interviews Oskar has after knocking on someone's door. The conversation is ridiculous enough on it's own because of his obtuse line of questioning, but at the very end the woman he is speaking with suddenly bursts out with "-would you please stop shaking that tambourine!". It recalls back to when you are first introduced to the character and told that he carries a tambourine, and leaves you wondering how many other scenes included a constant cacophony on top of the conversation.
The narrative style fluctuates so delightfully in this book, and then the final shift at the end makes it all the more poignant.

I really enjoyed this book and thought it was a brilliant first novel.I didn't like Everything is Illuminated nearly as much, but perhaps it's because I saw the movie first.

Oh, I really enjoyed ELaIC, but Everything Is Illuminated just left me wanting to get to the end.

And you're right, the 6th borough is such an incredibly story in itself (i read somewhere that it was originally just a story by itself written by Foer for like some literary magazine) and I think about it sometimes when I am riding the train into the city.

One thing I have to say is that even though I think his story-telling is amazing, Foer uses some... "literary" devices that are almost annoying and some critics have said can be counted as just typing nonsense. Like when he typed numbers for pages and pages (I don't remember what it was for- probably something to do with the mute grandfather), or random letters that faded by the end of pages. I know he's trying to show like the despair of the mute grandfather or whatever (like I said, I don't remember the details) but this would go on for PAGES. I mean, what is the point of having them besides just flipping through them quickly?? It's such a cheap trick to get more pages into his book and it DOES NOT WORK because I just wanted to have more story, and less wasted paper.

The thing is that the way Foer writes conversations- it plays out GREAT in your head- but when you say it out loud or imagine it being said out loud, it just falls on itself because of how improbable and cliche it sometimes can be. So I guess it's a good thing I don't read out loud.

anyway, great book.

I have the opening page written on my wall, it's so beautiful. I could spend hours trying to explain to someone why I love this book so much and you just sold it better than I ever could. Nice job!

This is one of my favorite books -- I knew it from 10 pages in, and it remained so through the amazing ending.

As a nitpicky note (and kinda funny), you've spelled Jonathan Safran Foer's name two different ways, and both are incorrect. Just a note. :)

way to spell the author's name right, douchebag.