Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Summary

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey.

Review  

Wow! This book was absolutely amazing! I really enjoyed it. What I love about this book is the writing style, not so much the plot. Jonathan Safran Foer's writing is captivating! I wish I could write like him...

  

Oskar Schell was one of those characters that you rarely meet in books or in real life as a matter of fact. He is definitely not the average nine-year-old boy. He was smart, witty, sweet, and down-right hilarious (even if it may be unintentional). I found myself cracking up countless times in this book. His character really grew on me throughout the book.This book is told through two different peoples' perspective (Oskar and another person) which I found confusing at first. I much preferred reading the chapters that were in Oskar's perspective because they were funnier and had a light-hearted sense.

I loved the pictures in this book as I found them to be very thoughtful and was relevant to the story line. The author plays with the words on the page (ex. sometimes there is only a sentence on a page) so you find yourself turning pages like crazy until you're done! 

This was a great read and I definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it yet :)

Rating 

✰✰✰✰✰ 5 stars - Digest it and eat it again! :D 

Follow Friday (1)

Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by parajunkee.com and alisoncanread.com. This meme is a way to follow and meet other bloggers :)


Question of the week: The New Year is here -- and everyone wants to know your New Years Blogging Resolution! What are you going to try to revise, revamp and redo for 2012 on you blog?


1. Review more titles - As a new blogger, I don't have many reviews up. This year due to my busy schedule I only read 18 books which is nothing compared to all the other bloggers. In 2012 I am planning to read 50 books :)


2. Comment - I want to get to know other bloggers! So I have decided to comment more on other people's posts because I really love it when people comment on mine :)


3. Participate in Memes - Participating in memes is a great way to get to know other bloggers such as this one: Follow Friday! In 2012, I am going to participate in more :) 

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Summary
Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's fiercest racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love--a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.


Review
Although this was required reading, I enjoyed this as much as I would reading this book for pleasure. The story started out a little slow and I didn't care much for it, but what really made me love this book was the ending. Everything came together in the end and I even got a little emotional. 


The story is written in the perspective of the main character Lily Owens. I found her to be a smart and witty. Throughout the book there is great character development for Lily. I really liked all the characters in this book as all had their own interesting back stories.

I really learned a lot about bees and bee keeping from this novel and what I really enjoyed were the epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter which were facts about bees from real books. They also cleverly related to the plot which I thought was fantastic. 

The Secret Life of Bees is a classic coming of age novel with great characters and a heartwarming plot.

Rating

✰✰✰✰✰ 5 stars - Digest it and eating it again! :D 

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Summary
From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love.

As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.


Read the full summary at Goodreads


Review
This book was absolutely heartbreaking. I don't know how I can do a review on this book without spoiling it so I'm going to give as little information on the plot as possible. The story follows three students from Hailsham, a private school in the English countryside. They are three childhood friends but they are all grown up now and have re-entered each others lives to rediscover and look back on their past. That summary sounds pretty bad but trust me it's not as dull as that. 


I really loved all the characters. Although, I would have to say I was frustrated at a few of them sometimes. Although this book is focused around three characters it is only told through Kathy, the main character's perspective.


A drawback to this book is that it isn't told in chronological order but rather skips around different time frames from the time when they are already grown up and from when they are young. This can often become a little confusing.  


Overall, the writing and the story was absolutely beautiful and I can definitely see why this book was so highly acclaimed. The story was unique and like nothing I've ever read before. I can easily see this book becoming a classic. There are so many twists in this book that it's impossible to predict what path the story will follow. The story stayed with me long after I had put it down. The themes in this book caused me to just sit and think about them.


I am going to have to check out more books from Kazuo Ishiguro :)


Rating
✰✰✰✰✰ 5 stars - Digest it and eating it again! :D