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All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr (Goodreads Author)

4.31 · Rating Details · 437,933 Ratings · 46,651 Reviews

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
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 Histo ...more

Hardcover, 530 pages

Published May 6th 2014 by Scribner

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Oct 14, 2015 LeeAnne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorite-fiction, literature, france, germany, character-studies, lyrical

All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr

This book has the most hauntingly beautiful prose I've ever read. It's brimming with rich details that fill all five senses simultaneously. It's full of beautiful metaphors that paint gorgeous images. I didn't want this book to end, but I couldn't put it down.

"In August 1944 the historic walled city of Saint-Malo, the brightest jewel of the Emerald Coast of Brittany, France was almost destroyed by fire....Of the 865 buildings within the walls, only 18 ...more

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Apr 16, 2016 Emily May rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, 2015, modern-lit

“So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?”

I'm going to be honest - love for this book didn't hit me straight away. In fact, my first attempt to read it last year ended with me putting it aside and going to find something easier, lighter and less descriptive to read. I know - meh, what a quitter.

But this book is built on beautiful imagery. Both in the literal sense - the physical world of 1940s Paris/Germany - and the metaphoric “So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?”

I'm going to be honest - love for this book didn't hit me straight away. In fact, my first attempt to read it last year ended with me putting it aside and going to find something easier, lighter and less descriptive to read. I know - meh, what a quitter.

But this book is built on beautiful imagery. Both in the literal sense - the physical world of 1940s Paris/Germany - and the metaphorical. It's woven with scientific and philosophical references to light, to seeing and not seeing, and the differences between the two. It's a beautiful work of genius, but it does get a little dense at times; the prose bloated by details.

However, when we get into the meat of this WWII novel, it's also the harrowing story of a childhood torn apart by war. It's about Parisian Marie-Laure who has been blind since she was six years old, and a German orphan called Werner who finds himself at the centre of the Hitler Youth. Both of their stories are told with sensitivity and sympathy, each one forced down a path by their personal circumstances and by that destructive monster - war.

I think this is the kind of book you will never appreciate if you stop too soon - I learned that lesson. From the first to last page, there is a running theme of interconnectedness, of invisible lines running parallel to one another and sometimes, just sometimes, crossing in the strangest of ways. These two lives we are introduced to seem to be worlds apart, and yet they come together and influence one another. It was this, more than the predictably awful tale of war, that made me feel quite emotional.

All the Light We Cannot See is haunting. That's how I would describe it. From the chillingly beautiful prose, to the realization of what the title actually means: that underneath the surface of history, there is light - and stories - that have not been seen; that have gone untold. Scientifically, we only see a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum; historically, we only see a small portion of the story.

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Dec 22, 2014 Melanie rated it it was amazing

I always thought, or imagined, that there were these invisible lines trembling in our wake, outlining our trajectories through life, throbbing with electric energy. Lines that sometimes cross one other, or follow in parallel ellipses without ever touching, or meet up for one brief moment and then part. A universe of lines crisscrossing in the void.

Anthony Doerr's astonishing new novel "All The Light We Cannot See" follows the complex arcs of two such invisible lines through the lives of Werner P I always thought, or imagined, that there were these invisible lines trembling in our wake, outlining our trajectories through life, throbbing with electric energy. Lines that sometimes cross one other, or follow in parallel ellipses without ever touching, or meet up for one brief moment and then part. A universe of lines crisscrossing in the void.

Anthony Doerr's astonishing new novel "All The Light We Cannot See" follows the complex arcs of two such invisible lines through the lives of Werner Pfennig, an orphan boy in pre-World War II Germany and Marie-Laure Leblanc, a blind girl living in Paris with her father. Through riveting flash forwards and flash backs, the novel charters the course of their lives as they struggle to find out wether it is possible to really own your life when it is swallowed by the black holes of history. One is driven by a deep love of science while the other is inhabited by the power of books. In the midst of the rise of German fascism and the birth of the French Resistance, how does youth manage to stay true to its essence?

A war story, a coming-of-age story, a philosophical fable, this is a novel that constantly oscillates between the moral uncertainties of life and the chiselled precision of the natural world that surrounds us. Between the political morass of war and the stupendous beauty of organisms, the ocean, the human brain.

The language is so fantastically precise - Anthony Doerr does things with verbs that make entire paragraphs sing - that the visual component of this book is quite astounding.

In the end, what this novel illuminates is the miraculous impact that seminal events have on the rest of our lives, whether it be the magic of radio broadcasts on the mysteries of science or the extraordinary adventures of Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea".

A deeply moving and enthralling work that echoes the power of early impressions on the building of a self, such as the philosopher Simon Critchley recently evoked so beautifully in a stunning essay published in The New York Times entitled "The Dangers of Certainty":
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...

Masterful. ...more

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Jul 24, 2015 Rick Riordan rated it it was amazing

Adult fiction

This book is getting a lot of well-deserved attention for its unique story and its beautiful writing. It starts late in World War II, as the Allies begin shelling the French city of Saint-Malo to drive out the remaining Nazi troops. Our two main characters are Marie Laure, a blind French girl who fled here with her uncle from Paris, and Werner, a radio expert in the German army who is stuck in the city when the attack begins. We jump back and forth in time, and between the two char ...more

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Jul 06, 2014 Becky rated it it was ok

I'm sure this is going to mark me as a literary dud, but for all the brilliant reviews of this book? I couldn't really get into it.

The book revolves around Marie-Laure, a blind girl who lives with her father. Her father is the locksmith at the Paris Museum of Natural History, and Marie is raised wholly in the museum and at home. Marie has a semi-idyllic childhood until the Nazi's invade Paris and she and her father have to flee to another city, where a reclusive uncle lives. Unknown to Marie, he ...more

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Jul 24, 2015 Chrissie rated it it was ok

Shelves: kids, germany, france, hf, magic, audible, returned, 2014-read

Why write a review if I am such an atypical reader?

~~I will keep this brief since~~ I feel most readers will not react as I have, but isn’t it important that all views are voiced?

All readers must agree that the flipping back and forth between different time periods makes this book more confusing. I believe it must be said loudly and clearly that the current fascination with multiple threads and time shifts is only acceptable when they add something to the story, when employment of such improves the Why write a review if I am such an atypical reader?

~~I will keep this brief since~~ I feel most readers will not react as I have, but isn’t it important that all views are voiced?

All readers must agree that the flipping back and forth between different time periods makes this book more confusing. I believe it must be said loudly and clearly that the current fascination with multiple threads and time shifts is only acceptable when they add something to the story, when employment of such improves the story. In this book they do not improve the story. Perhaps jumping from one scene to another can increase suspense, but must one also flip back and forth in time? In addition, more and more books are made for audios, and this is not helpful when you cannot flip back to see where you are. Finally, time switches unnecessarily lengthen the novel.

Secondly, be aware when you choose this book that the book is not only about WW2 but also a diamond that some of the characters, quite a few in fact, believe has magical powers. Those who possess the stone will not die, but people around that person will come to misfortune. This is all stated in one of the very first chapters; it is not a spoiler. This aspect of the book turns the story into a mystery novel. Where is the gem? Who has it? The result is that you have a heavy dose of fantasy woven into a book of historical fiction. I have trouble with both fantasy and mystery novels. Maybe you love them. (I would have preferred that the diamond was woven into the story as one of the objects stolen by the Nazis.)

Let's look at how the book portrays WW2. It is set primarily in Brittany, France, and Germany and a little bit in Russia and Vienna. Its primary focus is about what warfare does to people, not the leaders, but normal people. I liked that you saw into the heads and felt the emotions of both Germans and French. Some of the Germans are evil but you also come to understand how living in those times shaped you. To stand up against the Nazi regime was almost impossible. There are some who try. These events are gripping. You also get the feel of life in Brittany versus Paris. They are not the same. I enjoyed the feel of the air, the wind in my face and the salty tang on my lips in St. Malo. I do wonder to what extent my appreciation of Brittany as a place is more due to my own time there or the author's writing. Am I remembering my own experiences, or am I seeing it from the words of the author? I am unsure about this.

In any case, I was very disturbed by the blend of fantasy with gripping WW2 events.

The events of WW2 are those portrayed in every book. If you have read about WW2 in numerous other books of fiction or non-fiction you will not get much new. Rape by Russians felt like the author had to include this simply so it could be to be togged off his checklist. I do think the book moves the reader on an emotional level. You get terribly angry and shocked, and this is achieved through the author's writing, his excellent prose.

And this is what saves the book – its prose. The descriptions of things and places, the particular grip of a hand, movement of a body and what characters say. Very good writing. Beautiful writing. Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you feel that wind on your skin or the touch of a shell against your fingertips or smile at the oh so recognizable words of a child. Children often see far more than adults, but they also talk in a clear, simple manner. What they say is to the point - could that diamond be thrown away? Of course not. As remarked by one of the French children, "Who is going to chuck into the Seine a stone worth several Eiffel Towers?" Even if the gem has dangerous powers!

People love reading about kids and one of them here is blind. Who wouldn't be moved by such!

The narration by Zach Appelman didn't add much, but neither did it terribly detract from the story. I appreciated how he read some lines with a beat, a rhythm which matched the cadence of the author's words. Pauses were well placed. French pronunciation was lacking.

Oh my, once I got going I told you what I felt. I believe this book will be popular, and many will like it, but it was just OK for me.
...more

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Apr 21, 2015 Jenna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, favorites, to-review, arc, 5-stars-baby, netgalley

It has been awhile since I have found a book that I wanted to read slowly so that I could soak in every detail in hopes that the last page seems to never come.

When reading the synopsis of this novel, I never imagined that I would feel so connected to a book where one of the main characters is blind and the other a brilliant young German orphan who was chosen to attend a brutal military academy under Hitler's power using his innate engineering skills.

This novel was so much more than the above st It has been awhile since I have found a book that I wanted to read slowly so that I could soak in every detail in hopes that the last page seems to never come.

When reading the synopsis of this novel, I never imagined that I would feel so connected to a book where one of the main characters is blind and the other a brilliant young German orphan who was chosen to attend a brutal military academy under Hitler's power using his innate engineering skills.

This novel was so much more than the above states. The idiosyncrasies of each individual character are so well defined and expressed in such ways that come across the page almost lyrically. I was invited into the pages and could not only imagine the atmosphere, but all of my senses were collectively enticed from the very first page until the last.

I was so amazed with the way that the author was able to heighten all my senses in a way that I felt like I knew what it was like to be blind. In most well-written books you get of a sense of what the characters look like and follow them throughout the book almost as if you are on a voyage, but with this novel, I could imagine what it was like to be in Marie-Laure's shoes. The descriptives were so beautifully intricate that I could imagine the atmosphere through touch and sound. It was amazing, really.

There were so many different aspects of the book that are lived out in separate moments and in different countries that find a way to unite in the end. What impressed me most was that I could have never predicted the outcome. It was as though all cliches were off the table and real life was set in motion. Life outside of books can be very messy and the author stayed true to life but in a magical and symbolic way.

I have said in other reviews that just when I think that I have read my last book centered around the Second World War, another seems to pop up. I should emphasize that this book created an image of war in a way that I have never imagined before. I truly got a sense of what it must have been like for children who lived a happy life and then suddenly were on curfew and barely had food to eat. It also showed the side of young children who are basically brainwashed by Nazi leaders and made into animals who seem to make choices that they normally wouldn't in order to survive. And by survive, I mean dodging severe abuse by their own colleagues.

This book may haunt me for some time. I can't express enough how beautifully written the pages are. I highly recommend this read as it is my favorite so far for 2014.

I received this book through NetGalley ...more

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Jun 27, 2016 Catriona (LittleBookOwl) rated it really liked it

This book was so beautiful and haunting. I fell in love with so many of the characters, and loved how their lives were weaved together. Knowing the time period this was set in, I knew the ending would hurt. And it did, though I didn't shed as many tears as I expected.
The writing was incredible, the descriptions so vivid. It did a superb job of showing the reader how the characters felt through their actions, rather than telling. Whilst the short chapters (on average 1.5 pages) helped to make thi ...more

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Feb 25, 2015 Maciek rated it it was ok

Shelves: historical-fiction, world-war-2, reviewed, 2014-releases, read-in-2015

This is a carefully constructed book which is bound to captivate a large audience and become very popular, and be blessed with many warm reviews - it was chosen by Goodreads members as the best historical fiction of 2014, and shortlisted for the National Book Award. There are multiple reasons for its success - but they are also the same reasons as to why I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped I would.

Anthony Doerr's All The Light We Cannot See follows the parallel lives of two protagonists - Marie This is a carefully constructed book which is bound to captivate a large audience and become very popular, and be blessed with many warm reviews - it was chosen by Goodreads members as the best historical fiction of 2014, and shortlisted for the National Book Award. There are multiple reasons for its success - but they are also the same reasons as to why I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped I would.

Anthony Doerr's All The Light We Cannot See follows the parallel lives of two protagonists - Marie-Laurie, a French girl and daughter of a master locksmith at the Natural History Museum in Paris; the other character is Werner Pfenning, a German boy growing up in the mining town of Zollverein. Their lives are drawn against the brewing conflict, which will soon engulf not only France and Germany, but most of the world - the second World War.

Both Marie and Werner are sympathetic character for whom the reader can root for - the author has made sure of that. Marie-Laurie goes literally blind in the first or second chapter, and spends the beginning of the book becoming used to her new condition (mostly the help of her father, who designs elaborate puzzles for her to solve). Werner grows up in an industrial town hit by the depression, amidst the rise of the brownshirts; his only real companion is his sister, Jutta, and his only solace the radio - which Werner knows how to operate and fix instinctively, and to which they both listen at night.

The Nazis eventually come to power and invade France, forcing Marie-Laurie and her father to flee to the northern coastal town of Saint-Malo, an ancient walled city which provides picturesque setting for much of the book. In Germany, Werner's skill with the radio catches the eye of a Nazi official who sends him to the breeding ground for Nazi youth, where he will be trained to become a member of the military and eventually sent to the front. At the same time, a much older Nazi official searches all over France for an almost mythical diamond all over France, and is dedicated to finding it.

Doerr's chapters are short and readable, and often contain pleasant nuggets of prose which was obviously carefully thought-out. To maintain suspense, he switches both between perspectives and time periods: various parts of the book are set in different years, mostly non-chronologically, and are comprised of chapters alternating between different characters.

The trouble with the book is that it's not very compelling, surprising, or illuminating. With Doerr's outline for the story - three characters, three different viewpoints - we know that their stories will eventually collide, but when they finally do it happens in a quick, unsatisfying way. Doerr's characters lack moral complexity which would make them properly engaging - Marie Laurie spends most of the book in hiding, which is understandable, but which also stops her from being forced to make important moral and ethical choices regarding her own survival. Werner is even more troubling - while he is troubled by brutality he witnesses at the Nazi school, he seems resigned to it. Werner neither openly embraces Nazism, nor condemns it - he's indifferent to the whole experience and role he plays. It's as if Doerr never gave Werner the opportunity to grow up, choosing instead to preserve the young boy, fascinated by radio - which goes contrary to what boys and children in general experience in any war, which instantly strips them of their childhoods forever. The subplot featuring Von Rumpel, the old Nazi who searches for the mystical diamond seems to be attached to the rest of the book for no reason except to move the plot forward - there's no complexity to his character at all, and develops exactly as expected.

This is a book which looks as if it was designed to be read by younger readers - it's colorful setting, short chapters, switching points of narration will satisfy those with short attention spans, who require their story to be told quickly, engagingly, and not too demanding. I think all swearwords used in the book can be counted on the fingers of one hand; its language is very mellow and mild on obscenities. For a novel set during World War 2, it is a surprisingly tame book - murder and death cannot be escaped, but is downplayed as much as possible. One horrible instance of violence - which could have very well changed a character's perception on things - occurs essentially off screen, lowering possible impact it could have had on said character. This is World War 2, PG-13.

All The Light We Cannot See is a carefully crafted and constructed book, which for me remains its greatest flaw - I could never stop seeing the author's own hand behind the scenes, which made characters act out events in certain way, obviously planned well ahead. It's a fantasy world populated with unreal people, who engage in a fantasy war - and is bound to appeal to hundreds of readers, because this is what they want and appreciate. Popular for one season or two, but unlikely to be remembered in a decade or more.

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May 25, 2016 Dem rated it liked it

Recommends it for: book club read

Shelves: ww2

I enjoyed this novel by Anthony Doerr and yet when I was nearing the end I couldn't help feel a a sense of relief to have finished the book.

I enjoy historical fiction and really looked forward to this novel by Anthony Doerr as it was set in a time frame that that really interests me. Because I read quite a lot of novels set around World War Two I love the fact that the author took a a slightly different path with his storytelling and that is what drew me to this novel.

I loved the characters of M ...more

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Jun 09, 2016 Will Byrnes rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-time-favorites-fiction, books-of-the-year-2014

4/20/15 - PULITZER WINNER for 2014

The brain is locked in total darkness of course, children, says the voice. It floats in a clear liquid inside the skull, never in the light. And yet the world it constructs in the mind is full of light. It brims with color and movement. So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?

Marie Laure LeBlanc is a teen who had gone blind at age 6. She and her father, Daniel, fled Paris ahead of the German ...more

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May 25, 2014 Angela M rated it it was amazing

What I loved most about this book was all the light that I did see. There is so much here that captivated me - from the beautiful writing to the strong, caring characters to the loving relationships and the way people touched each other's lives during the trying times of WW II.

Parallel stories are told in alternating chapters of Marie Laure, a teenage French girl who has been blind since the age of six and Werner, an intelligent, perceptive and sensitive German orphan who learns to fix radios an What I loved most about this book was all the light that I did see. There is so much here that captivated me - from the beautiful writing to the strong, caring characters to the loving relationships and the way people touched each other's lives during the trying times of WW II.

Parallel stories are told in alternating chapters of Marie Laure, a teenage French girl who has been blind since the age of six and Werner, an intelligent, perceptive and sensitive German orphan who learns to fix radios and becomes noticed by the German army. Each of their stories will move you in their own right, but especially when their paths cross.

Through the lovely descriptive language we know that Marie Laure sees what she cannot see because he father lovingly carves a model of the neighborhood so she can tell where buildings and streets are and she knows by the number of steps and which way to turn. This loving, nurturing and often times touching relationship between Marie Laure and her fathers will melt your heart. He teaches her Braille, buys her books in Braille and gives her lovely little surprise boxes opened by solving a puzzle or trick opening to discover the hidden gift .

Werner and his orphan sister Jutta have a special relationship , as well, and the letters they exchange are at once heartbreaking an heartwarming, even though it appears that Jutta has a hard time forgiving Werner for what he does to the radio.

Doerr has created and developed characters that you care about as soon as you meet them. I loved “The Old Ladies Resistance Club”, led by Madame Manec, housekeeper, friend and caretaker to Ettiene , Marie's great uncle. The relationships that develop between Madame Manec and Marie Laure and between Uncle Ettiene and Marie Laure are nothing short of beautiful. The role that these people, including Marie Laure, play in the resistance is so courageous.

Some bad things and some very sad things happened but after all this was war. But I loved the connections of people in the end and the ultimately uplifting feeling of hope - another light in this book .

I highly recommend it .
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Jan 04, 2015 Raeleen Lemay rated it really liked it

Shelves: own

oK.

When I started this book, I noticed some similarities to The Book Thief, and although they quickly fell to the wayside, I couldn't help but compare this book to The Book Thief the entire time I was reading it. And since The Book Thief is my favorite book of all time, it kind of took away some of the enjoyment for me while reading this.

The plot and the characters ended up being quite different (which was great), but I just found that the pacing was a bit off for me. It was a bit too slow for m ...more

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Apr 04, 2014 Diane S ☔ rated it it was amazing

For me, this was a very special read. I feel like I have been on a long gut-wrenching journey, and in a way I have, traveling with two young children, one in Berlin and one in Paris and follow them as they grow-up. There are poignant moments, downright sad moments, moments that made me smile and moments that made me so very angry. Werner in Berlin is a curious child, a child with the talent for putting things together, like radios, he and his sister Jutta live in an orphanage. Marie-Laure, a For me, this was a very special read. I feel like I have been on a long gut-wrenching journey, and in a way I have, traveling with two young children, one in Berlin and one in Paris and follow them as they grow-up. There are poignant moments, downright sad moments, moments that made me smile and moments that made me so very angry. Werner in Berlin is a curious child, a child with the talent for putting things together, like radios, he and his sister Jutta live in an orphanage. Marie-Laure, a blind girl and her father live in Paris, her father is the keeper of the keys for a prestigious museum. It is the radio that will connect these two lives long before they actually meet.

The descriptions are wonderful, very detailed as they are made for a blind girl, to enable her to envision the many things described. The novel travels, back and forth, times when they were young, times when they are a bit older and Marie-Laure finds herself and her father in St, Malo at the home her eccentric uncle, who is another amazing character Werner finds himself chosen for a school, and we travel along with him as we learn the many young men in the Nazi party were trained to be cold blooded killers.

How far would you go along with the prevailing threats and times, how would you react when confronted with an injustice? One young man pays heavily for his supposed weakness of character. How long can one pretend everything is fine, trying to keep eyes closed so one cannot see?

So it is radios, little built towns and houses, built by Marie-Laure's father so she can get around wherever she lives. It is keys, the French resistance, the United States Air Force bombing of St. Malo, of imprisonments and yes love. Moral questions and a great character study.

It even follows a few characters after the war in Berlin, which is where this quote comes in, "Does any goodness linger in this last derelict stronghold? A little." The story than picks ups twennty years later. I read this as slow as I could, I really did not want it to end.

ARC from publisher ...more

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Mariah Currently reading this for the book club Diversity in All Forms! Feel free to join in the discussion :)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Nov 03, 2016 06:34PM

Dawn Diane S ~ I was looking back at this review because I wanted to see if I added any quotes that did this book justice . Of course , I did not ! I could Diane S ~ I was looking back at this review because I wanted to see if I added any quotes that did this book justice . Of course , I did not ! I could not even do the plot or characters justice. Everything I said about this magical and hope filled novel that did inspire me to walk with a new outlook and bounce and a twinkle in my eye since the day I finished the last page! What amazed me about All the Light We Cannot See was the title allowed us to remember to look beyond the events in the story for more than was before our very eyes ! I constantly thought that I was reading between the lines as I read each page and heard each character speak . I was watching actively to learn what each person could be feeling and thinking as each conflict or incident would appear from the shadows or dark into the light in order to be thought upon and fixed as best as possible and as fast as possible . Somehow fate most often intervened until it did not . It was a story about life and not just about WWII ! That is why it was surprising too! It was a book written about the survivors , the people who were so full of light and hope that knew there was no choice but to keep going forward . There was never anything but light ahead for these people ! Light is a metaphor for so many emotions , or examples of good actions and helpful spirits . Light can be knowledge that will add to the bright truth in our lives. Light can be warmth and caring comfort from family , friends or strangers. Light can be hope, faith, peace, and love for all. Why do we light candles to remember the loved ones we have lost ? This book took me everywhere with the characters and the metaphor of light . I thought it was a brilliant way to interconnect strangers from across the world . It is a small world at times . One such light that was powerful to me was the acknowledgment of Verner walking towards the light at his death when he realized he had been working so hard for the wrong side with his radio skills . At the very end he knew as he saw the light flash in front of his eyes . One last memory with the light metaphor that reminded me of Marie-Laurie's aura that radiated hope , happiness, knowledge and brightness in spite of no sight . When I was small we used to sing a little song :
" This little light of mine , Imma gonna let it shine ... This little light of mine Imma gonna let it shine... This little light of mine Imma gonna let it shine ... let it shine all over the world !"
I was motivated by this book because against all difficulties humanity prevailed by looking forward towards a goal or the light ahead even if that light was not visible ! This was a beautiful story . I do not want to give away the details . I will just say you are missing out if you can't see the story read without the light . ...more
Dec 22, 2016 12:26AM

Apr 15, 2015 Steve rated it it was amazing

A book topping the charts for weeks and weeks hardly needs my help, but I’m going to do this one the favor of a recommendation anyway. For efficiency’s sake, I’ll be addressing categories of friends en masse.

To those who like big-boughed characters (i.e., more than just stick figures): You get two compelling souls with this one: Marie-Laure, the valiant and inquisitive French girl who went blind at age six, and Werner, the tow-headed German orphan who had a knack for gadgets and science. Set in ...more

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Mar 30, 2016 Diane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, historical-fiction, war, holocaust, brunch-club

Is this the best World War II novel I've ever read? Possibly. It's definitely at the top of the list.*

Once again, I'm a little late to this book party, but I'm glad I made an appearance. So many readers had loved this book (and now that I've read it, I can see why it's such a favorite), but I kept putting it off because I've grown weary of WWII stories. Seriously, there is so much published about that period that it's overwhelming to sift through all the titles.**

But there are several things ab ...more

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Oct 09, 2016 Candace rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: listened-to-audio-version

So, I know I should be oohing and ahhing over this book, but it just wasn't for me. This is definitely one of those "it's not you, it's me" moments. I can see why many people have given such glowing reviews, but I found it to be unbearably dull and slow-moving. I never felt a strong connection with either of the main characters or the story itself. I'm just glad that it ended.

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Dec 14, 2015 Nataliya rated it really liked it

Shelves: recommended-by-my-colleagues, 2015-reads, war-s-inhuman-face

"Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever."

It's a story of childhood interrupted by war. Two children - a blind French girl Marie-Laure LeBlanc and a German orphan Werner Pfennig - caught against their will in the unrelenting forces of cruel madness and destruction of World War II, dragged along in the senseless current of history that does not care about the fates or ordinary people. This is a story of their lives until the brief moment in which they collide, to ...more

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Aug 10, 2014 Dianne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, arcs-and-goodreads-first-reads, best-of-2014

A 4.5....review coming. Have to ponder this a bit. It was a 5 until the last 50 pages....not sure I am being fair here. Very, very good book.

UPDATED: I received an advance reader copy of this book from NetGalley and Scribner. Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner. This review, however, is based on the hardcover version.

I have read this book twice now. The first time, the author had me in the palm of his hand. I was totally absorbed in the book and the flow and the pace of how the stories of Marie-Lau A 4.5....review coming. Have to ponder this a bit. It was a 5 until the last 50 pages....not sure I am being fair here. Very, very good book.

UPDATED: I received an advance reader copy of this book from NetGalley and Scribner. Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner. This review, however, is based on the hardcover version.

I have read this book twice now. The first time, the author had me in the palm of his hand. I was totally absorbed in the book and the flow and the pace of how the stories of Marie-Laure and Werner were coming together. Then – something happened with 50 pages to go that snapped me out of my reverie. It jolted me out of the story and everything was off-kilter the rest of the way. At the end of the book, I was in turmoil. The story was SO GOOD but the ending seemed awkward. One of my Goodreads friends, Evelyn, put it very well – she said she felt that she lost her connection to the characters.

I rated the book 4 stars but it didn’t feel right. The book is better than that – so, I picked it up again and re-read it. This time, since I knew what was going to happen, it did flow better for me at the end and I stayed engaged all the way through. I also picked up a few things I missed the first time through that were important.

The heart of the story takes place in Europe in World War II. Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a young French girl living in Paris with her father, who is the locksmith at the National Museum of Natural History. Marie-Laure is blind. They live simply and happily until the Germans invade France. The museum begins to remove and hide its treasures to protect them from the Nazis, who are pillaging and plundering art, jewels and other treasures as they advance. Marie-Laure’s father is entrusted with the Museum’s prize possession, a legendary blue diamond with a red center called “The Sea of Flames.” Marie-Laure and her father leave Paris on foot and head for shelter with Marie-Laure’s great-uncle Etienne in Saint-Malo, on the Brittany coast of France. Eventually, Marie-Laure’s father is called back to Paris, where he is captured and sent to the concentration camp in Breitenau. Marie-Laure and Etienne become involved in the French Resistance, while unknown to them, Sergeant Major Von Rumpel closes in on them as he searches for the Sea of Flames.

Meanwhile, in Germany, Werner Pfennig lives in the Children’s House orphanage in Zollverein, Germany with his younger sister, Jutta. Werner has a gift with electronics and radios, and his skills come to the attention of a high ranking Nazi commander. Herr Seidler recommends Werner for the National Political Institutes of Education, where Germany’s best and brightest boys are sent to be trained for Germany’s armies. Werner is sent to Schulpforta with 400 other “pure,” blue-eyed boys between 9 and 17 years of age where they are sent to study mechanics, state history, racial sciences, horsemanship, and military history. Werner is taken under the wing of Dr. Hauptmann, the technical sciences instructor, and is treated as a favored pupil. Meanwhile, the strong prey on the weak under the tutelage of sadistic Nazi instructors while Werner, who all his life has “gone along to get along,” looks the other way in shame and embarrassment.

The alternating stories of Marie-Laure and Werner are told in very brief chapters and those chapters are contained within alternating segments of the book that flip back and forth in time. Ultimately, the stories of Marie-Laure and Werner converge in Saint-Malo, as that last strong-hold of the Germans in France is overtaken by the Allies.

The writing is beautiful and the story is engrossing and very moving. I can’t imagine anyone not liking this book. So much to think about – I kept putting myself in the characters’ places and wondering what I would do. “What you could be,” Werner. What you could be…..

Five stars.
...more

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Jul 03, 2016 Alienor ✘ French Frowner ✘ (of badger and SNAKE) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-male-leads, historical, all-time-favorites, my-kindle-challenges-me, 2016-reads

*Edit* Rambling, part one.

5 stars for now because I will never forget this story. What they mean, will they stick, is another story. I may be able to review this novel in 20 minutes or days or years. For now I feel betrayed and speechless and sick and humbled and haunted and confused and hopeful and depressed and mad and bewitched and exhausted.

Perhaps I'm supposed to. Perhaps I'm not.

"I need to gather my thoughts" never sounded so fitting, really. Trust me, you don't want to be in my head rig ...more

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May 29, 2016 Cecily rated it liked it

Shelves: canada-and-usa, historical-20th-cent, read-only-cos-of-gr-friends, ya, sea-islands-coast

In the darkest places, at the darkest times, there is light, if we can but believe.

This is a story of contrasts, parallels, and coming together.

It is about light, and so, inevitably, also about the dark.

The descriptions are very visual, but what cannot be seen is key. One of the two main characters is blind, so it’s about touch and smell and sound as well. And it’s radio that drives many lives and events. “Radio: it ties a million ears to a single mouth.” It is also “a war waged through the air ...more

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Apr 20, 2015 Connie rated it liked it

Shelves: book-club-reads, new-authors-2014, 2014

2.5, maybe 3

So I maybe cried at the end of this....because I was done, or because I was so sad that I didn't like it more, not sure which. I rarely count pages...sometimes I am just sad when I only have a few left. This one I was counting to be done! Not a good sign.

Let me say, the writing was beautiful...I kept reading descriptive passages aloud. But they were about the settings, not the characters. Doerr made the settings come alive, the poverty I saw, the bombings I heard, the dust and rot ...more

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Jun 09, 2014 Marialyce rated it it was ok

This is a case of where I am going to hate myself for again feeling a book that has received a multitude of five star ratings feel short for me. It was not that I disliked it, but I found it to be jumpy and often disjointed. I am not a fan of the current trend of devoting one chapter to one character and the next to another and flipping back and forth. To my way of reading and thinking, it doesn't allow the reader (me) to gather depth of a character. It makes me overly anxious to sally forth ...more

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Jun 08, 2016 Matt rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, historical-fiction, literary-fiction

I follow a very specific plan whenever a new work of popular fiction bursts upon the stage. First, I buy it, right away. Like the instant I finish reading the review in the New York Times. Second, I put the book on my shelf, as soon as I receive it. Finally, I read it, two or three or four years later, when I finally get around to it. This routine is a function of several things, chiefly a love of books, a deliberate reading speed, and also financial impulsivity. At one point my wife found this ...more

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Nov 16, 2014 Regan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, books-owned-read

It was amazing.

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Jan 09, 2016 Tabetha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: holocaust, favorites

"A corner of the night sky, beyond a wall of trees, blooms red. In the lurid, flickering light, he sees that the airplane was not alone, that the sky teems with them, a dozen swooping back and forth, racing in all directions, and in a moment of disorientation, he feels that he's not looking up but down, as though a spotlight has been shined into a wedge of bloodshot water, and the sky has become the sea, and the airplanes are hungry fish, harrying their prey in the dark."

Light, a penetrable li "A corner of the night sky, beyond a wall of trees, blooms red. In the lurid, flickering light, he sees that the airplane was not alone, that the sky teems with them, a dozen swooping back and forth, racing in all directions, and in a moment of disorientation, he feels that he's not looking up but down, as though a spotlight has been shined into a wedge of bloodshot water, and the sky has become the sea, and the airplanes are hungry fish, harrying their prey in the dark."

Light, a penetrable light that we hope can shine through, Color, and Darkness are three of the running themes that are presented throughout this novel, centered around World War II. The beauty of the story is that we are given a backdrop of the horror of the War, but we are swept away by the very personal stories. First is the story of French Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, but who dreams and imagines in color. We next meet German orphan Werner, a brilliant mind, who takes care of his sister, before he is recruited into school for the Hitler Youth, Aryan and vicious in its terrorizing, training the best, the brightest, and most cruel. These two young people, whose paths will at some point cross and meet, will have their own roles in the War, greater than each ever imagined. They are living in a world that does not make sense, and where the beauty of light has been hidden behind rubble and senseless killings.

It is a book of moments, some so beautiful that they brought tears to my eyes, and others so shocking and tragic, filled with foreshadowing, that it was difficult to turn the page and read on. It is the type of novel that forces you to care as you learn and become involved with each character. Marie-Laure's father, for example, has a love for his daughter that is so profound and driven, as he first creates a miniature model of their neighborhood in Paris, after he learns the news that his daughter is going blind, so she can learn the streets by touch. This model becomes a central part of the story and creates a further degree of mystery and intrigue, adding yet another level to the story. Father and daughter must flee Paris as the Germans have invaded France (beginning in 1940) and they travel to find Marie-Laure's great Uncle Etienne, who lives in the coastal town of Saint-Malo. But the walls of Saint-Malo can not provide protection for long as the ugly hands of the War reach into even the most hidden places.

The more subtle messages of the novel, as well as the very clear, are in the individual stories told, such as the call for people to make a stand, even a seemingly small one, against a group think mentality that is so obviously insane. It is only through holding firm to your ideals that you are able to make a stand, and there can be great consequences if you do nothing at all. Remembering is a further way to bring the light in, and it is through passing down these memories that we will learn, and teach future generations the horror that we never wish to repeat. There are so many important messages, and so many beautiful lines to quote. I highly recommend this book that can be read many times, and each time you can pick up another clue and a different interpretation. As Marie-Laure contemplates about the importance of souls, and questions that even though we cannot see their light, isn't it possible that "great shuttles of souls might fly about, faded but audible if you listen closely enough?..." ...more

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Apr 13, 2016 Violet wells rated it it was amazing

Shelves: faves, world-war-two, contemporary-american-fiction, 21st-century, pulitzer

“What mazes there are in this world. The branches of trees, the filigree of roots, the matrix of crystals, the streets her father recreated in his models... None more complicated than the human brain, Etienne would say, what may be the most complex object in existence; one wet kilogram within which spin universes.”

I’m a sucker for beautiful writing and this is a very beautifully written novel. Doerr always has full imaginative command of his detail and, even if occasionally he feeds too much pr “What mazes there are in this world. The branches of trees, the filigree of roots, the matrix of crystals, the streets her father recreated in his models... None more complicated than the human brain, Etienne would say, what may be the most complex object in existence; one wet kilogram within which spin universes.”

I’m a sucker for beautiful writing and this is a very beautifully written novel. Doerr always has full imaginative command of his detail and, even if occasionally he feeds too much protein into his sentences, is thus able to evoke his images searingly and poignantly. The novel is a visual delight which is an especially brilliant achievement when you consider he’s often writing about blindness. Doerr’s poetic sentence writing often transfigures the familiar, allowing us to see the natural world afresh. His prose strips us of our own blindness to the beauty in the commonplace. The natural world pervades this novel like a kind of scripture. The goodies are aligned to the natural world; the baddies see it as little more than resources for furthering ambition. This being one of the many fairy tale motifs the novel dramatises. Because it can be read as a fairy tale. There’s a magical stone in the custodianship of Marie Laure’s father, a kind of Wizard (Etienne’s brother who transmits stories over the radio which Werner and his sister listen to as children) and a very clear unwavering distinction between the good guys and the baddies with few grey areas. The innocents are pure. The corrupted are beyond help.

All the Light tells the story of Marie Laure who is blind (To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness. Beneath your world of skies and faces and buildings exists a rawer and older world, a place where surface planes disintegrate and sounds ribbon in shoals through the air) and lives in Paris with her father (an idealised character in keeping with the fairy tale subtext of this novel), a locksmith and keeper of the keys at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. There, hidden in its vaults for the past 200 years, is an accursed gem, a greyish-blue sea diamond with a red hue at its centre: the Sea of Flame. When war comes Marie Laure and her father will become guardians of this stone. The other central character is Werner. Werner and his sister Jutta are orphans in the German mining town of Zollverein, near Essen in the Ruhr valley, heartland of the Nazi war industry. Werner has a gift of mending things and is especially attracted to radios. At night he and Jutta listen to an enigmatic French man telling stories for children over the radio – “a voice on the radio offering a loom on which to spin his dreams.”
As straightforward storytelling this novel is ravishing. I liked the short chapters and the flashing back and forwards in time. It reminded me of David Mitchell in its disregard for the perimeters between literary and commercial fiction. Doerr, like Mitchell, romps back and forth between the two camps with great poise and ease.

I’m not quite sure what Dave Eggers means when he says Doerr “sets a new standard for what storytelling can do” because there’s nothing groundbreaking about this novel. Like I said it’s straightforward brilliant storytelling. On one occasion Doerr uses a cheap trick, introducing a new POV to crank up tension (an informer who lives near Marie Laure) and then discarding the POV for the rest of the novel but on the whole the artistry of this novel was spellbinding. One of the novel’s themes is guardianship, executed especially well with Werner’s protective but ultimately impotent feelings towards the dreamy Frederick at the bullyboy Nazi college, but shown as a constant facet of the novel’s every relationship. Everyone is guarding some precinct, some stone or calling of the heart. How, above all else, we are all guardians of our own flame which, in the novel, is often seen as our relation to how we use our time and best dramatised through Marie Laure’s great-uncle, the shellshocked Etienne who after WW1 became agoraphobic and never leaves his house until circumstances force him out. This idea is also expressed by Werner – “He thinks of the old broken miners he’d see in Zollverein, sitting in chairs or on crates, not moving for hours, waiting to die. To men like that, time was a surfeit, a barrel they watched slowly drain. When really, he thinks, it’s a glowing puddle you carry in your hands; you should spend all your energy protecting it. Fighting for it. Working so hard not to spill one single drop.”

Transmitters/transmission is another constant theme. The diamond transmits a curse, coal transmits energy, light transmits codes and of course the radio transmits a channel through which Marie Laure and Werner first connect and establish their elective affinity. Doerr creates a world we’re all blind to, a world pulsing with invisible transmitting circuitry. So what began as a clever stroke of emotional manipulation – the positing of a blind girl at the heart of the novel – becomes a tour de force of thematic choreography.

Map-making is another theme. Etienne’s broadcasts create a map that unites Werner and Marie Laure. Marie’s father builds her a miniature scaled model of her Paris neighbourhood and then, when they move, a miniature model of Saint-Malo in order that she may feel her way through a perfect replica of her surroundings. Werner is mapping out enemy transmitters during the war. Once again Doerr is exploring the invisible grid that maps out our lives, the light we cannot see.

The bitchiness of Carmen Callil’s review in the Guardian was astonishing. Rarely do fellow writers publically ridicule each other in public. Just the opposite. There seems to be a you-pat-my-back-and-I’ll-pat-yours attitude to reviewing so you have to wonder why her review seemed so personally malicious. Often the reviews seemed to have this novel down as a brilliant page-turner but not great literature. I’ve been wondering about this. I adored reading this novel and then perhaps, a day after finishing it, felt maybe I had been somehow tricked into liking it better than it deserves. Does Doerr lack a little subtlety in his emotional manipulation of the reader? If you write a novel about a blind girl with an adoring ideal father and an orphan boy who protects his younger sister you’re obviously going to almost immediately command a great deal of sympathy for your characters. These are the innocents of fairy stories. Also the stalker von Rompel who Doerr makes no attempt to portray as anything but pantomime villain. But all these motifs belong to the fairy story aspect of this novel and within that context are managed well I think. It’s also been said Doerr doesn’t deal with Nazism very convincingly. Is that a valid criticism? The English patient is a WW2 novel and it could be said that doesn’t deal with Nazism very well either. Doesn’t prevent it from being a brilliant thought-provoking novel.

“Impossibly, the static coalesces into music. Volkheimer's eyes open as wide as they can. Straining the blackness for every stray photon. A single piano runs up scales. Then back down. He listens to the notes and the silences between them, and then finds himself leading horses through a forest at dawn, trudging through snow behind his great-grandfather, who walks with a saw draped over his huge shoulders, the snow squeaking beneath boots and hooves, all the trees above them whispering and creaking. They reach the edge of a frozen pond, where a pine grows as tall as a cathedral. His great-grandfather goes to his knees like a penitent, fits the saw into a groove in the bark, and begins to cut.”
...more

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Dec 26, 2014 Laz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone, every one

Shelves: tear-jerkers, historical-fiction, all-time-favorites, war

We all come into existence as a single cell, smaller than a speck of dust. Much smaller. Divide. Multiply. Add and subtract. Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin as a microscopic electrical swarm. The lungs the brain the heart. Forty weeks later, six trillion cells get crushed in the vise of our mother’s birth canal and we howl. Then the world starts in on us.

This is majestic. This is gr
We all come into existence as a single cell, smaller than a speck of dust. Much smaller. Divide. Multiply. Add and subtract. Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin as a microscopic electrical swarm. The lungs the brain the heart. Forty weeks later, six trillion cells get crushed in the vise of our mother’s birth canal and we howl. Then the world starts in on us.

This is majestic. This is grand. A compelling World War II story about a young French girl named Marie-Laure who's lost her sight and a genius German boy named Werner who's been recruited by the army of his country because he has a knack for fixing everything he's given. There are so many other characters, so many other stories woven into this intelligent novel like for instance Werner's little sister, Jutta, there's also the 'Sea of Flames' which is a diamond rumored to bring luck to everyone possessing it but death and misfortunes to everyone surrounding that person (that plays a huge role in the book so watch out for the details), there is also Volkheimer, Marie-Laure's father, Madame Manec, Etienne, Frau Elena. So many characters, so many stories and different personalities but it all leads down to one thing. Survival.

When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don't you do the same?

This novel is centered around the innocence of the children. We see the war through their eyes. We see what's important for them during this awful, horrid thing called war. We see the fear through their eyes. Through a blind girl we feel what the world is like for someone who's lost her sight, we can feel the difficulties of going through the war with nothing but her insticts, her voice, her innocence. We see how some German recruits might have felt during that war, how they might have felt repulsion towards their own country, how they felt that what was happening was in vain.

I have been feeling very clearheaded lately and what I want to write about today is the sea. It contains so many colors. Silver at dawn, green at noon, dark blue in the evening. Sometimes it looks almost red. Or it will turn the color of old coins. Right now the shadows of clouds are dragging across it, and patches of sunlight are touching down everywhere. White strings of gulls drag over it like beads. It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.

Light in this novel is an objective, abstract form of seeing the good in things, seeing the importance of being grateful for what you have. Every person has a different perception of color, we do not in fact all see the same shade of blue, or yellow, some of us may see them more vividly and strongly and some of us may see them a little more pale than others, a little more faded. Some of us may not even see colors or light at all, some of us are forced to not see them, but we imagine, we remember how they felt, what they did to us, and we feel grateful for just this.

This novel is so touching, it touches a deep part of the soul of the person and I believe it'll touch you too in ways you cannot even imagine. It's a book about loss, desperation, protection, love, and everything you can possible come up with, with doses of believing in the impossible.

Don’t you want to be alive before you die?
...more

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Mar 09, 2016 Michael rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, world-war-2, germany, france, favorites, grief

A wonderfully moving and lyrical account of two teenagers coming of age on opposite sides of the conflict during World War 2. One is a blind girl, Marie-Laure, living in Paris at the beginning in 1940 and then, before the German occupation, moving with her father to the walled Brittany town of Saint-Malo. The other main character is Werner, an orphan in a German industrial and mining town whose talent in fixing radios gets him sent to an elite training academy. The narrative alternates chapters ...more

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May 26, 2014 Jenny rated it it was amazing

I died a thousand times while reading this book. It is mysterious, heart-breaking and just brilliantly beautiful. It deserves all the stars.

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About Anthony Doerr

Anthony Doerr is the author of five books, The Shell Collector , About Grace , Memory Wall , Four Seasons in Rome and All the Light We Cannot See . Doerr’s fiction has won four O. Henry Prizes and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, and The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction. He has won the Barnes & Noble Discov ...more

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