52books:

#7: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Johnathan Safran Foer

The only way I can think to do this review is in the form of a list:

1. This book was a weekend binge, but I had to stop reading at times because my heart hurt. 
2. Johnathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss are married and have a son. They live in Brooklyn. I wonder what kind of stories they tell him.
3. There are many sentences here worth at least an underline and an arrow exclaiming “I know! I know!”
4. New York City is a magical place and even if someone tells you that there is a lot of pain here, it is both true and false. 
5. I don’t want this to ever be made into a movie. Ever.
6. I kind of wish that the characters of this book could meet those from Everything is Illuminated.
7. Once I thought I saw Johnathan Safran Foer sitting across from me at Chipotle eating a burrito. This was before I read his books.
8. I’m not sure if I’ll ever read this again. 

That’s all.

This is my favorite book.  

Even though I have always been, as we say in my family, a “superlativist,” overusing words like always and never (see above, totally an accident, by the way) I am typically loathe to label books or movies as my “favorite,” since I also don’t like to limit myself. If you ask me what my favorite movie is, for example, I would be unable to name just one.  Until I read this novel, the same was true of books.  I don’t know how I feel about the Becky who is able to make this kind of declarative about a book, but as much as I love novels and love reading, I’ve never read any book that made me feel the way this book makes me feel.  Other books may feel like passionate love affairs or strong, trusting marriages, but this book is my soul mate.  That might make me crazy, but I can’t help it.