Rating: 
Summary: Nothing Is Not Tenebrous
Review: My legal name is Crazy Ukrainian. This is fortuitous for me and Jonathan Safran Foer since if he wrote his tome in broken Asian American, African American, or other tongue he would have been burnt in effigy by now. Apparently there are no mainstream Ukrainian book critics in America. Let me be perfectly clear: imagine the narrator of this book is a young black man who speaks grammatically incorrect English, and that the author is white.
Rating: 
Summary: Illuminated, Absolutely...BUT..
Review: Everything I read in advance made me believe this was the next "The Corrections". Sorry folks, it's not. What it is, however, is a stunning first novel that reads as though it were written by a cross of Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow. The trick here, if you're persistant(and please, be persistant)is the use of language, the inefficiencies of language, and the stupidity of time. It's not an easy book to read if you're used to straightforward linear storytelling, it IS an easy book to read if you're into the experience of discovering where the writing of fiction is headed. It befuddled me, it made me laugh, it made me cry. What more can you ask from a story? Buy it; you'll either get it or not get it, either way, you'll remember how it made you feel!
Rating: 
Summary: Premium Entertainment
Review: This book is sublime. You owe it to yourself to read it. Jonathan Safran Foer is astonishingly talented and has produced a masterful book. It manages not only to be wise, but also wickedly funny. You'll never look at English the same way again.
Rating:
Summary: Shockingly bad
Review: Alright, I will admit I've only read the New Yorker short story. But that was awful - mannered, self-absorbed and completely false. I find it hard to believe that the novel can be much better. I have spent years working in Ukraine, speak Russian and Ukrainian, and I found the character of Alex simply ridiculous. Evidently Alex's butchering of English is supposed to be humorous, but unfortunately none of his dialogue sounds anything like a native-Ukrainian speaker attempting to speak English. Caricatures are not funny when they're painfully off-key. I'm shocked that this is the book of the season. If you want a good, funny, real novel about Ukraine try "Death and the Penguin."
Rating:
Summary: A PURE PLEASURE!
Review: For many reasons, I love this book. Much of the story is narrated by Alex, a Ukranian youth, who speaks English "fluidly" and is charged with the duty, by his father who runs Heritage Tours, of translating for the fictional Jonathan Safran Foer on his journey through the Ukraine in search of the elusive Augustine - the woman believed to have saved Jonathan's grandfather from the Nazis. Alex's grandfather is their driver, although he is blind (only, perhaps, from a broken heart). They are accompanied by his seeing eye dog, Sammy Davis, Jr. Jr., whose amorous antics add a Marx Brothers quality to this cast of characters. But, there are two other stories interwoven with Alex's narration. There is the correspondence between Jonathan and Alex and the folklore, reaching back to the 1700s, which tells the story of the village in which Jonathan's ancestors once lived. What is so amazing to me about this book, given the author's age, are the sensibilities expressed by him - the impact of history, truth, connectedness, remembrance, friendship, betrayal - it is written with true heart, insight, wisdom and irony - something that I might, if I'm lucky, experience from someone with many more years of living. The book is exhilerating, heartbreaking to the point of tears, and laugh out loud funny to the point of shaking my head thinking "I can't believe he said that." The book is a remarkable journey and an amazing achievement.
Rating: 
Summary: The Literary Equivalent of "The Strokes"
Review: ok, most of you reading this book are cerebral enough to have also been force fed the musical equivalent of "The Strokes" Is This It? oh, yes these young men are "gonna save rock n' roll"; the next "nevermind" yada yada...um yeah, OK. what few can seem to admit, it really isn't very good. as so is this book. the hype machine at work here would also explain how Razorfish got funded and people *actually* pay to go see movies with nicole kidman in them, particuarly "Moulin Rouge" so, drop this title at the next cocktail party if you dare, but really, isn't you self-esteem strong enough form your own opinion to admit that this is a mediocre book at best? hopefully amazon.com will bundle this book with The Strokes
"Is This It?" and call it the "What the New York Times told-you-is-so-cool" super saver fun pack.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: This book is funny and touching without being cheesy. The author quickly gets you used to Alex's hilarious 'thesauresized' English and takes you back and forth centuries and cultures with astonishing ease. He creates memorable characters - Alex, the flatulent dog Sammy Davis Junior, Junior and Alex's grandfather jump to life in their interactions. The ending is problematic in that it turns really sad really abruptly with not much narrative basis, but I would check this out anyway, just for Alex's broken narration
Rating:
Summary: good effort but way pretentious
Review: Although the kid has talent, he does not have it in spades and the novel is ludicrous, overblown, a fake Yiddish pastiche of third-tier Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith. Stay away.
Rating:
Summary: Don¿t judge this book by its cover.
Review: The eccentric and attention-seeking graphics of the bookjacket convey the idea that this book is fresh, daring, kooky, and inventive-and the book is all these things! But it is also serious and thoughtful, touching on universal themes and the essence of what makes us human. With young "heroes" who are sometimes both earnest and sweetly vulnerable, the book contains moments of profound melancholy, as well as deep sadness, behind its bravado and its finger-snapping brio. Jonathan Safran Foer, a character bearing the same name as the author, is looking for the woman he believes saved his grandfather Safran from the Nazis. Traveling to the Ukraine, he meets Alex Perchov, a young man representing a Ukrainian travel agency which specializes in taking tourists to the sites of vanished shetls. Alex, a not-quite-fluent translator, and his "blind" grandfather, who serves as the driver, travel with Jonathan to the site of Trachimbrod, his family's village, collecting stories and legends which will help Jonathan learn about his family and his Ukrainian Jewish heritage. I agree with some other reviewers that parts of the book are a bit sophomoric. (How many farting dog jokes does one need? And do we really need to know the details of Grandfather Safran's 132 mistresses?) The fictional Jonathan's letters and comments as he writes a novel about his trip are an artificial device for dealing, perhaps, with the author's uncertainties and/or heading off criticism, while the chapters he includes for Alex's review, are, of course, the actual chapters of this book. And Alex's misuse of language, while often very funny, begins to pall after numerous repetitions. But these are minor criticisms in view of the author's immense achievement in dynamically presenting two young men as they explore who they are, where they come from, and how they fit in the world. As the sought-after story of each boy's grandfather emerges, the depth and breadth of family relationships and cultural history become clearer to character and reader alike. The dramatic and moving conclusion should establish, once and for all, Foer's credentials as a new talent to watch.
Rating:
Summary: Great to See Him in Print!
Review: My son went to school with young Jonathan, and it is so great to see this whirlwind surrounding him. But I think the book was a little rushed. It's young: self-serving in only the most distracting ways. I imagine its Jewish appeal will propel it far, but I'm not sure as a literary standout it stands out all that much, or at least not deservingly. I remain a fan of your FUTURE work, Jonathan!
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