All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel
by Anthony Doerr
by Anthony Doerr
Synopsis
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
Review
Wow! This book was a stunningly gorgeous read and an up-all-night-page-turner. I highly highly recommend this book. The characters and scenes are brilliantly rendered - I felt like the characters were old friends and the settings of the book were my childhood homes. I could so vividly see each and every character and each and every scene. This book was such a delight to read. The short (often very very short) chapters made for an addicting read as I continually found myself saying "just one more chapter" and would end up reading another 100 pages. This is one of those books that I waited all day to finally sit down and read and now that it's over I'm a little sad, but I will never forget it.
While the book takes place during World War II I wouldn't categorize it as just another WWII book (while I do love reading that genre, if it even is a genre, it can get old after a while) in that the characters are so richly portrayed that the war takes a back seat to the story. Definitely read this book!
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