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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What a stunning book. I wondered how all the separate threads would be weaved together at the end, and I was thoroughly satisfied. This is what WWII historical fiction should be. I highly recommend.
5/5 stars
Wonderful story that will stay with me.
Anthony Doerr has penned a fabulous book set in WWII France. His characters are true-to-life and the story is unusual and haunting.
A must read.
The opening line hooked me and never really stopped. This heartbreaking story is told so beautifully you won’t mind the way your emotions are constantly on edge. A unique and powerful book
The story is compelling and tragic, it is continuously interesting, and the writing is beautiful and stunning. Very recommended.
This is an incredible book. The writing is beautiful and the characters are drawn magnificently. It’s a must read.
Set in both Germany and France before and during WWII, this brilliant literary masterpiece moves back and forth in time, switching points of view amongst several finely-spun characters with whom we identify and empathise. Through beautifully flowing prose, the author paints pictures of light, and dark, and everything in between.
It is an amazing …
This book absolutely destroyed me – in a good way. I loved this book. Loved! Loved! Loved! I’m obsessed with WWII on the European Front, so it’s not such a surprise I would enjoy Doerr’s novel, which takes place in France and Germany in the years leading up to the war and the war itself. But this novel is so much more than a novel about the war. …
I LOVED this book. Can’t remember when I enjoyed a book more – I was completely swept up in it. It is a huge book and shows WW2 through the eyes of Werner Pfennig a young German and not through the eyes but through every other sense but sight of a young, blind, French girl, Marie-Laure. The book switches between their respective points of view as …
This was the best book I’ve read in a long, long time. Loved the way Doerr was able to twist the stories of the two characters together perfectly. Loved the beautiful prose, the imagery and constant thematic references and symbols of sight. A brilliantly written book. Can’t get it out of my head!
This book is the one I will use as an example for anyone criticising a non-linear narrative. In Doerr’s skilful hands, the story could not be told any other way than to leap back and forth in time.
Two stories intersect and eventually entwine in the build-up to World War II. Marie-Laure is blind and motherless, but endowed with great fortune. Her …
Fantastic
I just couldn’t put this book down. It was one of those books you thought, just one more chapter before turning in.
Wonderful story–sad, too. Lots of conflicting emotions.
This novel set in France and Germany during WW2 has much going for it. I love that he chose children who grow into adulthood. Our heroine is blind and her loving father helps to acquaint her both while in Paris and by the sea at her grandfather’s home. She becomes a member of the Resistance. The boy in Germany is being raised in an orphanage and …
I thought the story line was very well developed along with some very strong characters. Drama was well developed and historical connection was ready to follow. Very good read that I would recommend to anyone.
I just loved this spirited book, stayed up many late nights cause I couldn’t let it go. I also thought it had a little romance within this tragedy loved,loved,loved it.
The time in history, the setting and the characters put the reader in another world, a world of darkness and uneasiness. The generous human spirit shines with a piercing light to inspire and encourage the reader, who will feel the experiences of the heroine personally and vividly. This is a book that will stay in your heart long after you finish …
This book is one of the BEST books I have ever read. Great character development, beautifully written, and simply amazing. It is one of the few books that I will likely read every few years.