#53: Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

This is a premium book. I didn’t want it to end and I didn’t want to see the characters I loved be hurt. THAT is how you know a book has moved you. To the surprise of more than a few people, this is my introduction to Foer’s work and I’m looking forward to reading his other book. However, I’m glad I read this one first as it gave me a chance to read a new style of writing. It’s ability to capture what it feels like to love, lose, try, or fail made me remember what is so great about books in the first place. Just as music can sometimes bring an emotion without any words, sometimes the words in books can feel musical. (Does that make any sense?) I guess that’s what reading Everything is Illuminated felt like to me, a kind of journey full of falsettos, crescendos, staccatos, and everything in between. If you’re looking for a book to start of the new year, choose this one. It was an excellent end (or what I thought was the end) to this years book project.