Everything Is Illminated by Jonthan Safran Foer

Honestly, this book does not really make sense to me. I think I made a poor judgment in choosing this book. First of all, its one of the slowest books that I've read in my life. Foer's Writing style also completely confuses me. He seems to try to show that his character is Russian but to me he overdoes it. His word choice consists of leaving out or switching around many words that are essential in the English language and using words that I have never heard of or rarely use. Although this is nice because one of my major reading goals was to make sure that I got many new vocab words out of each new book that I would read but in this category, Foer again overdoes it. I do have to blame myself though, I probably should have picked up on this trend when I wrote down fifteen new vocabulary words by the time that I had finished page four. Maybe in several years I would like to give this book another chance because my sister did recommend it to me and she does know me well, but as of right now I do not like this book and I have no yearning feeling inside to stick with it. There are many books out there that I stuck with even if they were slow because I cared about the character and the plot but so far in this book there has been too many characters to keep track of. I truly was trying to keep up with this book. i spent a good amount of time this week reading it just to see if I was able to hang with it but when you only read twenty five pages in an allotted time of nintey minutes, something is definatly up. After reading only twenty five pages I have already encountered probably ove twenty five different characters. i think that the best books have you really caring bout the character but in this book, which character am I suppossed to care about, one of the three parents, someone in the Shetetl, Bitzl Bitzl, Trachim, Alex's dog or again Shapka, another name for the youngest alex. this book is just too confusing for me and I hope to start a new book as soon as possible.
Nothing Personal Mr. Foer, I'm only fifteen and this book is simply too hard for me.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Ok, lets start off strong. This book is the greatest book that I have read in my entire life (at least so far). The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is the story of a kid named Oscar. not only is it a great realistic fiction story of his life, Diaz also decides to shuffle in his Dominican heratige, 100 years of Dominican history, Domincan superstition and a lot of Oscar's family tree. Now this book started off like any other book until you reach the second chapter, then you realize that you wont have any idea who the narrater is or who's perspective the next chapter is coming from. This book definatly keeps you on your toes to jump at any suspicians, repeating patterns or the fusing of the different peoples stories (all very close to Oscar and relating to him or his relatives, this is not a book of short stories). The book is so diverse and well written that it will have you deciding what characters you like and hate and you will like at least one character. Oscar is an overweight comic loving guy (everything his mom doesnt want him to be) who is trying to get by in the world (Diaz has you constantly thinking throughout the book, Does Oscar want to be helped or left alone?). I dont really want to get to much into the book because any minor detail is only a page away from being a major storyline and I'm afraid telling you any more is to much. What I will tell you is that is you do chose to read this book which you definatly should, I have two words of advice for you, hang in there with the book, dont abandon it and also dont let the fact that there are words in spanish that you dont know get you down, its suppossed to be that way. So to any lover of really any genre, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is out there waiting for you to read it.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is one of the most depressing books I have read in my life. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and even though generally speaking books about the post-apocalyptic world aren't really my thing, McCarthy's writing style really compelled me to move on and finish the book. This book takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which only a few people in the world remain. The two main characters are a boy and a man (who may be his father) but besides that you dont really learn much about them. You begin to follow their journey on the eastern coast of what used to be the United States of America and now what is a barren wasteland covered by ashe. The temperature is dropping and the aim for the boy and the man is to get south. They accomplish this by using only what they pick up along they way. They must travel on a major highway, the road, at the risk of desperate cannibals killing and eating them. With their only means of defense being a pistol with two bullets, they mainly try to avoid trouble as opposed to getting into it. The man and the boy have an undescribable love for each other and through all of the terrible sights that they see, the man has only one major rule for the boy, that when they are separated he must keep the pistol with him and shoot himself if men attempt to take him away. As you can probably tell its a very depressing story but definatly a great read. McCarthy's writing style is extremely simplistic throughout the book which always keeps you guessing whos talking or what is going on. If one wanted to, I'm sure that he/she could unpack every sentence to that book but for others just looking to enjoy themselves and perhaps look at life from a totally different perspective, I reccomend this book to you.