Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

In the beginning of the book Oskar seems somewhat immature and makes the most random comments. As the story moves on we find out that his father has died which is a horrible and tragic thing to happen to a young boy like Oskar. All of his actions begin to make sense and we understand why he acts the way he does. Him and his father were extremely close and it only makes sense for him to be completely devastated. Oskar has so many questions about his dad after he dies but he can no longer ask his dad. He sets out on his own adventure to get answers to all the questions he has.

The novel becomes more interesting when other characters begin to chime in with their own chapters. Oskar's grandfather talks about how he left his wife and Oskars grandmother talks about everything going on in her life. Oskar's mom is also devastated by her husbands death but she has a friend, Ron, who helps her through it. Oskar does not like Ron being around the house and he feels like his mother is not sad and has already moved on. It makes sense that Oskar decides to go on this journey to figure out what the key goes to because he doesn't like being at home with his mom and Ron. He also deeply wants his mom to care where he is going and to ask when he will be back. Oskar is hurt by his mother's lack of questions but we learn that she has found out what he was going to do and she knows exactly where he is going and who he is going with. Oskar just wants another father figure in his life who he can share all of his random facts with and share his inventions with. He meets many people along the way but none of them can replace his father.

I thought it was really interesting that Oskar never let his mom hear the messages or pick up the phone when his father called the last time. He was trying to protect his mom by never sharing the messages with her but at the same time it could have given her some closure. He told her that he was safe and was walking home just to not scare her or Oskar. I can't even imagine being in this situation but I think that Oskar truly wanted to protect his mother and maybe he wanted his fathers last few words to be shared in between just them. I think that Oskar didn't want to pick up the phone because he didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to have to say good bye to his father, his best friend, and no one could blame him for that.

At the very end of the story when Oskar is talking about how his father would have done everything backwards, I think that was Oskar's way of accepting that his father is gone but he will always be with him. The last pages of the book are pictures of a man falling of a building. It is like a flip book but the pages go backwards. The first page start with a man midair and as the pages go on the man ascends instead of falling. This is really interesting, its showing that thought horrible and tragic events can happen there is always a way to get back up and keep trudging along. This book was very good and I loved how it doesn't make much sense throughout the whole book but at the very end everything ties together.