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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Outstanding novel!
I almost skipped this title, thinking I wouldn’t find anything worthwhile in yet another WWII novel. I was wrong. By viewing the era through a young, blind French girl and a young, nerdy German boy, both caught up in worlds they cannot control, I experienced a very different perspective. Mesmerizing.
A must read!
Every few years I seem to gravitate to yet another story embedded in the horrors of World War II. It’s like I’m drawn to relive the history that my parents survived, my grandparents and grand aunts and uncles fought and died in. It feels almost like an ancestral memory, a psychic wound that requires picking open every few years. This story is of …
This is absolutely one of the best books I’ve ever read. The writing is superb; I’d sometime re-read a passage just because it was so beautifully phrased. Though the story is compelling, I didn’t want it to end.
After reading this book on my own, I ordered copies for my AP Lit class to read. They were floored and embraced the characters, themes, and writing with aplomb. I recommend this author, especially this novel, without reservation.
Beautiful story! Wonderful characters!
It reads like a classic with beautiful writing and authentic research.
This book was one of the greatest books I have ever read! Just couldn’t put it down- and was sad when it was over!
Best book I’ve read so far.
Doerr paints pictures with his words that allow you to understand the dilemmas of these characters and a greater understanding of the hard places people find themselves in.
Wonderful book! Mr. Doerr did such a great job introducing each of all the characters in their separate lives and then tying them all together through out the story.
Thank you for a great story.
Bertie
Coming, at last, into one’s own, ´When The Light Gets In’ begins a little slowly but provides so many tender-hearted moments and interesting characters, what I first thought was a book that I would soon put down without finishing, had me staying up late to read!
As the story grew, so did the richness of the story, characters, and that alchemy of …
I give this book a 4 1/2. I am tempted to give it a 5. It is such a good book. I really loved the characters. The author did an excellent job of writing and it was easy to keep track of the story.
Perhaps the best book I’ve read in the last five years.
A very poignant story about young blind girl’s life and struggles during the World War II.
Fabulous!
I loved it! It really gave an understanding of what it was like to live during the German occupation. Being blind was even more frightening.
Good read.
Wonderful book.