#elaic

This book is insane & I still feel it deeply.

I mean... He does read autistic to me.

but yeah fuck the movie, the absence of the father was critical to the tone so that the audience would miss him along with Oskar. Casting Tom Fucking Hanks as the dad and giving him to the audience thru flashbacks undermines the theme+moral+ending+reveal

my dad died when i was a kid, also in 2001 (but not from that) and VERY OFTEN when i told people thru my whole childhood, they would get very sad because they were imagining what their grief might be if they lost their dads and then I'd have to console them and be like "I'm ok now! It was a long time ago!" and it seems like the movie was deliberately leaning into that and turning it into a whole big "imagine if Tom Hanks was your dad and then imagine him dying and then feel non-imaginary sadness" rather than it being about the star of the book, Oskar

She said, 'You're awake.'

I started crying.

She opened her arms and said, 'What is it?'

I ran to her and said, 'I don't want to be hospitalized.'

She pulled me into her so my head was against the soft part of her shoulder, and she squeezed me.

'You're not going to be hospitalized.'

I told her, 'I promise I'm going to be better soon.'

She said, 'There's nothing wrong with you.'

'I'll be happy and normal.'

She put her fingers around the back of my neck.

I told her, 'I tried incredibly hard. I don't know how I could have tried harder.'

She said, 'Dad would have been very proud of you.'

'Do you think so?'

'I know so.'

I cried some more.