All the LIght We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr   531 pages

All the Light We Cannot See has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 37 week (as of this writing)   and was a 2014 National Book award finalist. The book jacket states it Doerr spent a decade writing this story. I can see why, it’s filled with historical details.

Marie-Laure has been blind since she was six years old.  Now fourteen, she and her father live in Paris on the eve of WWII.

Werner has a gift with radios. His “knack” leads the orphan boy to be admitted into a brutal branch Hitler’s Youth Army.

The story weaves back and forth between Marie-Laure and Werner, each chapter no more than two to three pages.

All the Light We Cannot See in not another WWII story. It’s not plot-driven, but character driven, except the small scenario of a stolen gem.

Marie-Laure and her father are forced to flee Paris as the Nazi’s march in. They escape to Saint-Malo to the home of her great-uncle and his eccentric housekeeper.

As Werner becomes a soldier and his expertise with radios and tracking signals becomes well-known, he isn’t sent to the front lines. He’s sent into France to help track the Resistance.

Eventually, and inevitably, Marie-Laure and Werner’s paths cross in Saint-Malo. The intertwined tales recreates in harrowing detail the deprivation for civilians in Nazi-occupied  France and the brutality of Hitler’s soldiers.

It almost seems that All the Light We Cannot See would be a hard book to read. However, given the magic of Doerr’s writing, it becomes a book of hope.