Q2: Blog1

I promised myself that I would FINISH Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer, and yet I haven't picked it up since my last blog post. But if I read it for outside reading, I'll have to finish it, right? Well, that's the theory. So I picked up the book, but had to reread all but the very beginning because I have a horrible memory and always forget what happens in what I read, even if I read it fairly recently. So to recap: Oskar's dad died in 9/11, he finds a key that belonged to his dad. The envelope that the key is in says 'Black' on it, so he is going to find every black in New York City and ask them about a possible connection to his dad. On page 91, Oskar is at the first of the Blacks' house, Abby Black. When she won't let him in, he tells her, "'I'm diabetic and I need sugar asap.' Lie #35." The whole book, but this passage in particular, reminds me of the summer reading book for 9th grade, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Oskar, like Christopher, must have a very structured mind if he counts the number of times that he lies. Also, he goes out of his comfort zone to solve a mystery about someone he really cared about. In Curious Incident, Christopher's neighbor's dog, a 'friend' of Christopher's, has been murdered. He crosses the street my himself, which scares him. He also talks to strangers, which he is scared of doing. It is worth it, however, because he wants to solve this crime. Oskar follows a similar path. He spends his entire weekends going to various 'Black' homes to try to solve this mystery relating to his father. The boys also follow similar paths in the lines that they won't cross, even for the sake of solving their mysteries. Christopher won't go to the 'drug dealer's' home, even though that could help him solve his mystery. Oskar won't take the subway, even though that could save him a lot of time, he wouldn't have to walk two to three hours to the various homes that he is going to anymore. Both boys also lie to their parent about where they are and what they are doing. I wonder if more similarities to the two stories will come up over the course of the book?