Book Review on Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer receives five out of five stars and a full recommendation.

On a search for a type of peace and closure, nine-year-old Oskar Schell goes on a search after his father, Thomas Schell, who was a victim of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Author, Jonathan Safran Foer takes the reader through the inspiring story, narrated by Oskar, as he journeys through the New York boroughs. Oskar, being an outgoing, tambourine-playing, jewelry-making, butterfly-collecting, ameuter inventor, Shakespeare-quoting, little brainiac, encounters many people on his ultimate scavenger hunt who help him rid of his “heavy boots”, or his depression.

Oskar’s thrilling experience shows just how amazing people can be, but also how others also have “heavy boots” as he does. As Oskar travels through the boroughs meeting anyone who may have known his father, he finds himself and is able to reconcile his relationship with his mother.

The story traces through the life of three generations of the Schell family, but the World Trade Center attack is still the center of it all. Front and center is Oskar, who from the start is not a normal nine-year old. His character creates tension between the fictions and realities of the novel’s main theme.

Extremely Loud explores its own specific story, which Foer shows in three parts: Oskar searching New York for a lock to match a key he finds in his dad’s closet; letters to Oskar from his loving grandmother; and unsent letters to Oskar’s dad written by a mute man who skipped out on him before birth. Author Jonathan Safran Foer shows distinctive voices for each part, all of them stylized, searching, and original without overpowering Oskar’s main part.

It’s a testament to Foer’s writing that his way with words never trumps the emotions he serves, and that those emotions—pain, somberness, regret—never lose sight of the love and hope they coexist with. For a novel about death, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is also full of life to not feel something for the theme or characters.