"I thought about all the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped."Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a very interesting piece of fiction. The novel is told in an experimental style and involves sections of pictures, letters and pages that are symbolic of the protagonist's thoughts. The novel is told from the perspective of Oskar, a nine-year-old boy who sits somewhere on the Autism Spectrum, as he embarks on a journey to discover any kind of information about his father.
The Good
I thought the experimental way in which this book was written was perfectly suited to the way Oskar narrated the story. The book deals with a lot of emotionally heavy topic, such as 9/11 and the finite nature of life, but in my opinion, these topics were dealt with in such a beautiful way. I found the writing style to be unique and interesting and I loved the characterisation of Oskar. I loved Oskar's perspective on life, and I love the way that the author dealt with a lot of heavy issues in such an innocent way, and there are so many quotes that I've highlighted because of this. This book made me laugh and cry so many different times, which usually tells me that I loved the book, which is certainly true in this case.
The Bad
The novel deals with two generations, Oskar's and his grandparents'. While I think this definitely added some much-needed depth to the story, there were a couple of times that I was so completely confused about who was narrating a particular chapter. This was especially true of the letter writing aspects - and even when I knew it was from the grandparent generation, I was sometimes then confused about which grandparent was writing the letter... However, once I got into the story more it became easy to distinguish each perspective.
The Recommendation
If you have never read any experimental fiction before, then I would definitely recommend this book to you, because while the experimental aspects are very prominent, they're also easy to understand and follow. If you've never read a book in which the main character suffers from some form of Autism, please read this book! It's such an eye-opening experience and can really help people to gain a better understanding of why people like Oskar do what they do. At the same time, if you've read a book that ticks both of those boxes, I would still recommend Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to you, because I thought it was an excellent book.
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