Rating: 
Summary: I loved it
Review: I thought the book was wonderful. Grabbed me on the first page and I never wanted it to end! I thought it was funny, sad, beautiful. I couldn't believe it was written by someone so young. Really touched me, I can't stop thinking about it.
Rating: 
Summary: ugly & pretentious
Review: Another in the recent spate of overhyped books by young white guys. In a style that imitates David Foster Wallace & Salman Rushdie, the author strains to show us how very, very clever he is, which is very very tedious. Beneath that, the tone is simply hateful and ugly, an attitude that the author is trying to pass off as sarcastic or ironic. If you liked The Corrections, you'll like this. If you hated the Corrections, as I did, don't even think about picking up this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated but not bad
Review: Based on the stellar reviews and being the child of Holocaust survivors, I was eager to read this book. While parts were fun and parts were interesting, I found many parts to be a muddled mess. Maybe I just didn't get it, but I don't think I should have to work so hard to enjoy a novel. While certainly not the worst book I've read I was disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: The Critics are Blind
Review: I couldn't finish this book and found it insufferable, but not as bad as its print reviewers. They've gone into paroxysms of praise, as if no one had ever written anything half this brilliant. Ever. One even said that only a few times in life do you find a book that becomes an experience. That made me wince. How can a book not be an experience? But as for EII, the humor is tedious, and ditto the magic realism. Of course, he's young, it's a debut, and he's good-looking. That's all critical in the world of publishing and reviewing, which is closer to PEOPLE Magazine every day.
Rating:
Summary: A winning account of realization and discovery
Review: A yellowing photo leads a young man on a search for the woman who might have saved his grandfather from the Nazis, and a journey through a changed land. From imagining the history of his grandfather's village to facing its reality, Everything Is Illuminated makes for a winning account of realization and discovery.
Rating: 
Summary: tough but satisfying
Review: I like to think of myself as a fairly sophisticated reader after having taught English for 30 years, but this was a novel that took a little work to get through. The diction of the Ukranian narrator and the marvelously complicated structure and timeline of the novel required focus. I often had to go back and reread a passage or page to cement the antecedent to the pronoun. The author's structuring of dialogue in running sentences in the same paragraph, ommitting the speakers' names, demanded a careful reading on my part--(maybe not for you).
The note written by the gypsy to her Jewish lover is just ONE WORD, astoundingly simple yet profound--and this small brilliance in Foer's crafting of the novel makes it all worth reading--of course there are hundreds of others, but this was my favorite.
Every week I see the novel on the best-seller list, I gain a growing appreciation for the American reading public who can tackle a challlengingly structured novel to ultimately be rewarded with some fine truths.
Rating:
Summary: I Loved it/I Hated it/I've already Forgotten it
Review: At times overwritten, at times underconceived, this novel often drifts along on the force of the emotion the author wants to convey but too often falls short of being actually emotionally engaging. Typical in First Novels of Great Ambition, Foer throws every trick he can think of into the stew-pot, including screenplay formats, dream chronicles, endless lists, and a loopy, Simpsonesque cast of characters you can't even begin to keep straight without a pad of paper nearby. Throw in an annoying, predictable, straight from TV plot "twist" at the end, and you have a book that, minus Foer's industry connections and the trendy WWII-based plot, would most likely have rotted in the slush pile.
Rating:
Summary: Everything Is Appropriated
Review: Sure, the guys got some lyricism but the whole structure of this novel-a protagonist searching his family's history while also discovering himself- has been done before. T.C. Boyle did this with World's End about a decade ago for which he won the Pen/Faulkner award for best first novel. In that story Walter Van Brunt seeks out his family's past in Northeast America. The novel alternates between the seventeenth century, the mid-twentienth century, and the present, while the reader and Walter try to approach some semblance of truth. Foer does add some magic realism, but surely the book is not the inventive groundbreaker that critics hail it to be. It's a fun story to read, but when you're done with it you feel as though the layout of the novel is all too familiar.
Rating:
Summary: Sweet Illumination
Review: Before undertaking this novel, I read many reviews on Amazon.com. In contrast to the NYT and Washington Post reviews, a number of them seemed angry, particularly at the precise imprecision of Alex' speech. Some of these comments seemed to come from first generation Americans who responded to the often amusing word choices of narrator Alex, rather than the increasing depth and poignancy of his message.
In contrast I found his malapropisms made unbearable truths easier to hear. I found him to be a character of courage and intense love. His willingness to sacrifice, his struggle to determine the best (or least harmful)course of action for all those his great heart hoped to protect represents for me all the ideals we treasure in the heroes who built our country.
The Jonathan narrator on the other hand, willingly exposes himself to criticism for all the weaknesses and affectations of the incredibly well bred and exchanges lessons in vocabulary for lessons in truth in all its mysterious manifestations.
I loved the book. I loved its crazy patchwork of imperfect characters and I loved Alex' plea for the same moment of happy closure that I ached for...and somehow strangely received just by knowing how Alex' version would read.
Rating:
Summary: The Book Of Revelation
Review: Everything Is Illuminated is an odd, intriguing and very touching novel that will leave a strong impression upon you, whether you end up liking the book or not. Let it be said that this is one book you will not soon forget!Jonathan Safran Foer (yes, the book's main character bears the author's name) is going back to his homeland to find and woman and thank her for having protected his grandfather during the war. Were it not for this woman, his grandfather would have died because he was a jew. Jonathan goes to this country, where he will meet his tour guides, a young man and his grandfather who are about to embark on a journey that they, too, will not soon forget. This book can be split in two equal parts. The first is written by Jonathan as he recalls his family's history, starting from the late 1700s up unto the 1950s and the end of the war. This section of the book offers some very touching moments and some of the most graphic descrptions of the horrors of war. The second part of the book is narrated by the young tour guide, a man who can barely speak English. And so, all of his writing is done in broken English, as written by someone who knows English only as a second language. Both sections are about discoveries. All of these characters are about to discover things about their lives that will leave them changed forever. But more importantly, all of these characters are about, through the dozens of revelations they will suffer through, to discover themselves. I have to admit that it took about 50 pages to get into the book. But soon enough, I found myself completely engaged and unable to put it down. This is one intelligent read that never tries too hard. Nor is it so literary that you can't fully feel entertained. This is one great book that will stay engraved in my mind for quite some time. It is a wild and strange experience that left me feeling breathless and completely awed.
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