A review by phonologia
Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer

2.0

I really, really tried with this one. I felt like I owed it to Jonathan Safran Foer to read at least two thirds of this book before giving up, because of the good times we had together with Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I just barely made it to my arbitrary cut off of two thirds, and when I did, my relief was overwhelming. This book was just... boring? And uncomfortable? The plot was almost nonexistent, which I'm generally ok with if there are lovable or compelling characters to make up for it, but the characters in Here I Am were just sad. Sad, and terrible at communicating. Sad, self-conscious, and obsessed with bodily functions of all kinds. I'm usually open-minded and intrigued when it comes to descriptions of sex, bodies, etc., but I cringed my way through so many parts of this book. For comparison, I'll hold up Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections as proof that vulgarity and grossness CAN be done well (e.g., the oddly hilarious and deeply uncomfortable scene where a character with dementia starts talking to his own shit, and it talks back). Here I Am does not succeed on that front. There are two good things about this book, and their names are Max and Benji. Jonathan Safran Foer has not lost his touch for writing hilarious, interesting children, so if there was a sequel told entirely from the perspective of Max and Benji, I'd probably enjoy it. In the meantime, I'll just be over here, waiting patiently for Jonathan Safran Foer to write another book with some life in it.