outside reading

This weekend I started my outside reading book, one of the many options I had to choose from for home work.  I am reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close  by Jonathan Safran Foer. I had previously read Everything is Illuminated as my summer reading book coming in to AP lit. I really liked his writing style, I felt that he captured the voice of his characters very well and the plot was interesting. However the structure of his novels are what is very interesting to me. In Everything is Illuminated there are really almost three stories going on. Flash backs to the past, flash backs to when the characters went on the journey together, and the present. Much of the story is told via letter. This kept me as the reader on my toes. It kept things interesting and I wanted to continue reading.

Extremely Loud an Incredibly Close has the same kind of interactive reading but in a format that I think is even more fun to read! A boy named Oscar whose father died in the attack on the World Trade Center is on a mission to figure out where the lock is to a key that was left to him by his deceased father. This is the basis of the novel and what makes the structure so interesting is that as Oscar uncovers the clues in the form of letters and pictures ect. They are presented to us as the reader as well. It makes it more interesting because I feel like I am along side him trying to figure out the clues. It is a very neat twist and it definitely helps hold my attention as a reader. I love mysteries first of al and secondly the structure and format that the novel is presented makes me want to read more and more.

I am SO glad you assigned the outside reading of our choice, because while I don’t hate any of the books we have read this year it is nice to be able to choose one we believe we’d like. It is a nice change. And takes away some of the stress of all of the other assignments we have to complete. I am excited to read the rest of this book, and continue to read Foer’s work because I’m a big fan. I love the suspense of mystery, it makes me want to read as fast as I can to find out the ending… It’s kind of like a game and I like that. His style keeps thing interesting. I love reading when I am really in to a book and I am very excited to see how this one pans out.