Winner of the Pulitzer Prize A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book* A National Book Award finalist * From Anthony Doerr, the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of Cloud Cuckoo Land, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World … France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. 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, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.
Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).
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I am already partial to books set around WWII but this one isn’t ABOUT the war; it is about the people living during this time and their unique perspectives. I can’t say loud enough how much I loved this book- I give it way more than 5 stars!
inspiring and powerful
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr changed the way I read books and, importantly, the style I aspired to with my first novel, Parallels That Cross. As I was starting to write my novel, a friend recommended Doerr’s work of historical fiction because of the way it cleverly interwove the stories of the two main characters. A young French …
This was a great story of how two young people during WWii in France on opposite sides found the same things at the end of the war. The story goes on a blt too long tying up loose ends in current time but over all there is a really good story of these two people and how they coped with the ravages of war during their teen years.
What a heroin. I loved this story set in France during the second world war. It was delightfully told and the imagery in every page of the book laid beautifully in my mind. I felt like I could see every element. Very well done. Beautiful and yet tragic story. As a historian at heart this book got it right. I absolutely loved it.
I say haunting because it left you breathless and sad. I love historical fiction and this was one of the better ones. My father was in the 2nd World War and told me many stories of his time over there. I must say, it was like him telling me another one of his stories. I loved it.
Would recommend this to everyone, I believe a movie will be made, not sure if it’s Netflix or on big screen, but nonetheless, read the book, it’s excellent!
I liked it but struggled to finish it.
One of my favorite books of all time. It helped that I read it on my way to Brittany and Normandy, but I would have loved it anyway.
dissapointing, cliche
One of best books I’ve ever read
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read!!!!!
Very stylized excellent writing, historically enlightening book
A beautifully-written tale that won’t let you stop reading.
Brings reality into truth
I absolutely loved this book!! It was hard to read in some parts due to “man’s inhumanity to man”, but the story was captivating, as was the heroine of the book. I highly recommend!!
Reminiscent of The Book Thief in tone, this story stole my heart. I wanted to keep reading just to stay in the space the author had created. Tragedy and hardship were dealt with in such a gentle manner that, in less masterful hands, could have made the story unbearably dry. Instead, the result was achingly real and beautiful.
One of the protagonists of All the Light We Cannot See is a young French girl who has been blind since the age of six. After the Nazi’s invade Paris, they flee to a city by the sea. The other is a German orphan whose knack for engineering wins him a position in a military academy and, eventually, a place in the Nazi Reich.
The story is good. The …
My book club went through a WWII phase and we all enjoyed this book.
Insight into life during WW2 for interesting characters with heartwarming relationships.