argh about books

I've been reading the book EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED by Jonathan Safran Foer for one of my classes. Less than a third of the way in, I realized that I had heard one of his other books on tape this summer while on the road with my mom and sister. The book, while many parts of it are laugh out loud ridiculous (and, yes, I have literally laughed out loud), irritates me for its style and unbelieveability.

I checked to make sure that I was right about my connections with Foer's other book, and came up with this portion of an e-mail that I wrote during that painful book-on-tape voyage toward Virginia:

"We've been listening to a book on tape entitled _EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE_. Maybe you've heard of it. I forgot all but the author's first name, which is Jonathan; and I wouldn't recommend the novel. Though I've read only one book and heard one story by Chuck Pahlanuik, the writing in this book on tape reminds me of Pahlanuik's. I feel like the characters in the novel live under what seems to be drug-induced haze, or they indulge in their strangeness far too much (say, at all times) for the book to appear realistic to me. And it seems to want to come across to readers as believable. Maybe I'm being too critical... and maybe people like those characters really do exist. There actually was a point in a recent passage where the imagination of one character finally conceded to having thought up the series of events just described... That was a relief."

Did anyone reading this happen upon either of those books and sincerely enjoy them?... ugh. That's all I have to say; but, I'd be happy to hear someone argue the other side. What's redeemable about the novels (other than their strange hilariousness... I think one critic called "dementedly hilarious".)?

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that this EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED book was made into a movie and, yes, I enjoyed the movie when I saw it. And, I admit, for the most part, the book is enjoyable... though, I get mad at it every time I start to think that the characters and events are aspiring toward realism. Hmmph. Anyone else see the movie? What'shisname Elijah Woods stars in it...