Review: All The Light We Cannot See

Title: All The Light We Cannot See
Author: Anthony Doerr
Publisher: Scribner
Release Date: May 6th 2014
Genre: Historical Fiction
Add it: Goodreads
Buy it: Kindle Edition
Rating:

Blurb from Goodreads...

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.

In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure.

My Thoughts...

Truth be told, I am not much into historical fiction novels. I used to be a huge fan of historical romance novels but I am now more into contemporary adult novels. Anthony Doerr's All The Light We Cannot See, though, is a Goodreads Choice 2014 Award winner and is included in various lists made by book blogs/sites of must-read books. So, I felt compelled to get a copy and read it.

And, boy, did I make the right decision!

This book was superbly written! A beautiful prose, full of haunting details of what it was like during the war. Marie-Laure and Werner's stories were told in a fashion where we could fathom how the important events in their lives took shape, amidst the chaos of a war. I love Marie's father, how he helped her cope with her blindness. I love Werner's and his sister Jutta's yearning to learn what's out there, beyond their attic room in the orphanage.

What made my heart ache so much more with this story was how everything in Marie and Werner's lives seem to happen so that their paths would cross. It felt to me like there was an invisible thread linking them together.

The war tore so many lives apart. You could feel the pain left in the lives of those who survived it. When you get to the end of the book, you would feel like you also survived the war and your heart will never be the same again.

***

I started reading this book back in January 30 but I was only able to dedicate an hour or two before I go to sleep so it took me a while to finish. I was done reading by the 5th of February.