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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This story follows the lives of two young people during the chaos of WWII, one German and one French. Although Doerr shows us the horrors of war, somehow his lyrical writing style shines a light on the resilient human spirit as few writers can. One of the most beautifully crafted books I have ever read.
An entertaining novel which kept me reading.
Honestly, this book took me a long time to get into. It was slow for the first couple hundred pages. Once I hit a spot that I got into it though, I finished it that night. It was beautiful!
A story of two children cast adrift in the turmoil of WW2: Marie-Laure, a blind French girl exiled with her father from Paris to Saint-Malo while in possession of a precious jewel, and Werner, a frail and bookish German orphan, who possesses a scientific aptitude that proves useful to the Nazis. Marie-Laure must somehow persevere when her father …
The two central characters are woven together in France after we meet and follow them for several years. The plot develops organically and gives a realistic portrait of how character changes and develops during a war. Lovely.
I loved this book and have recommended it countless times to friends. The setting is World War II, seen through the eyes of two young people whom you grow to love. The prose is lyrical and the story will stay with you for a long, long time.
I could not put this book down. The story and Characters drew me in immediately. Look forward to reading more of his work.
This was an excellent book; very well written and obviously very well researched. It keeps the reader enthralled from the first page to the last.
Truly touching.
The best book I have read in two years.
Even if you don’t like historical fiction, I think anyone could appreciate this book. Absolutely beautifully written and it made me feel like I was in the 1940s. I’d recommend this to anyone who loves a good read.
One of the best crafted and original stories I have ever read. You will never look at your radio in the same way after reading this fascinating novel.
One of the best I’ve ever read.
This book contains some of the most beautiful writing being done anywhere in our English-speaking world.
Enjoyed
Amazing. The description is phenomenal. The characters are deep and complex. It just pulls you in. It reads like a fast read even though its quite thick. It’s surprisingly suspenseful at times. And it’s heart-wrenching and beautiful and just very human.
I read his in one long sitting, simply could not put it down.
Loved this book. The author developed characters with whom I had empathy & hope for their futures. Not all turned out well. The book was enlightening about how Nazi occupation affected the lives of real people.
An engrossing and deeply moving story with characters who lingered in my thoughts long after I’d read the final page.
Beautifully written.