It's 5am, and I just finished reading minutes ago.

Gotta say as a whole, the novel was good. Liked the unconventional approach in storytelling, especially with the play on typography. But I also felt that Oskar was portrayed beyond his years and the approach was a tad too similar to "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time".

It is true that national disasters like 9-11 are effective means of showing the transient and fragile nature of human lives. The novel even goes a step further to draw parallels between 9-11 and the ugly nature of war. However, it is disappointing, and a tad unsavory, that the novel has to borrow the emotional turmoil of 9-11 to sell its sentimental standpoints. The time-frame/events of 9-11 were just not crucial at the crux of it all; any other disaster/accident could have yield the same effect.

However, what really struck me at 5 in the morning, isn't the novel, but rather, the heartfelt scribblings of a previous reader. Yes, it is the 3 lines in pencil marks.


I guess, in an odd cosmic way, these timely words really brought some measure of peace to my troubled mind.

And with emotions sweeping through me as dawn breaks, I like to pen these last few quotes from the books.
If you ever read it, you'll know it's for you.

" How could anything less deserve to be destroyed?

It was late, and we were tired.
We assumed there would be other nights...
I said, I want to tell you something.
She said, You can tell me tomorrow.

I had never told her...
There was never a right time to say it.
It was always unnecessary.
I thought about waking her.
But it was unnecessary.
There would be other nights.
And how can you say I love you to someone you love?

Here is the point to everything...
It is always necessary.
I love you. "