I loved this book's utter strangeness. How can you resist a narrator like Alex, who butchers the English language so beautifully and to such comic ends that to laugh out loud while reading his chapters is virtually impossible. I was so amused I had the urge to read particularly funny sentences to who ever was in my general vicinity. A book like this isn't one you keep under wraps--you tell everyone you know to read it so you can laugh at things like how Alex repeatedly refers to the grandfather's dog as his "seeing-eye bitch."Everything Is Illuminated is not all fun and games though--there is a balance between that which is hysterically funny and that which is heartbreakingly sad. The other main character, Johnathan, comes to Ukraine to search for the woman who supposedly saved his grandfather from the Nazis. The search for this woman leads them on a comical, yet serious journey that ends in the illumination that the title suggests.
There were parts that confused me, and I was slightly put off by some scenes of brutality towards the women, but overall, this strangely entertaining story charmed me and I plan on reading Foer's second novel sometime in the near future.
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