
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, 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 War II.
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. 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, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, 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 War II.
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. 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, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, 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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3
wizardsheart (Grade: A) I was leery to read this, because the WWII is depressing to me. But I am glad that I did because I found this book to be so beautiful. I didn't like the ending, but the story itself was worth the journey.
(Rated on Jun 3, 2015)
2
FromBooksToCoffee (Grade: B) Very good book but I will probably have to reread it to pick up on things I missed.
(Rated on Jun 26, 2015)
2
notapuppy (Grade: A) This story is wonderfully constructed and beautiful.
(Rated on Jul 5, 2015)
2
turnercr (Grade: A) Doerr does more with a sentence than most, and his word usage is refreshing (I had never heard of the term, "gibbous moon" before). He successfully gets into the mind of what it is like to be blind - especially in someone who once had sight. He makes the tragedy of war personal, without getting preachy, and shows how war reveals an individual's true colors - good and bad. Although there have been many books about WWII, this one has a unique perspective and is well worth the time.
(Rated on Jul 6, 2016)
2
Mayda (Grade: B) Author Anthony Doer takes a popular topic and pens a tale with an entirely new slant. A blind French girl and a brilliant German boy eventually cross paths, but both suffer great hardships and loss. Set against the atrocities of World War II, this story is not so much about the war, but about the human spirit, what it can survive and what it can’t, about relationships, and about what happens when the heart finally tells the brain, “enough.”
(Rated on Jan 4, 2017)
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