All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

All the Light We Cannot See

By Anthony Doerr

  • Release Date: 2014-05-06
  • Genre: Literary
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 10,041 Ratings

Description

* SOON TO BE A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from the producer and director of Stranger Things starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti*

*Winner of the Pulitzer Prize* National Book Award Finalist* A New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book* A New York Times Bestseller *

The beloved, “incandescent…luminous” (Oprah Daily) 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).

Reviews

  • ALL THE LIGHT WE CA NOT SEE

    5
    By hcclc
    EVEN BETTER THAN THE REVIEWS
  • Slow and disjointed

    1
    By Scalinni
    Horribly slow to develop. I didn’t like bouncing between stories.
  • READ THIS BOOK!!!!

    5
    By heldberg1027
    Omg. Still sobbing. This is a book I see myself coming back to for years to come. Seriously, get this book
  • All the light we cannot see

    5
    By franceen queen
    It was a fascinating intertwined story of love life and the hardships of war I truly loved this book as I loved all his others
  • I miss these characters already

    5
    By Kc36+
    Such a great journey.
  • All The Light We Cannot See

    4
    By Mwcunnin
    I am a black and white thinker. I’m trying to see gray. This book perfectly nuances all it means to be human. It offers a honest perspective from every side. This is one of those books that can change you. If you let it. I will read it again in a few years. Just brilliant.
  • Very black story. Could not finish it.

    1
    By TTTTTTTTTTGGGGGGGGGG
    This just kept getting more and more depressing and I finally had to put it down. Maybe it ended on a high note but not willing to endure any more
  • The Best Book

    5
    By Sharon in Whitehaven
    This is among my favorite books ever written. After reading Cloud Cuckoo Land, I read the Memory Wall and then re-read this. I’ve no doubt I will read it again sometime in future. It completely draws me in. I especially enjoy reading his work on my electronic device, so I have immediate access to on-line materials including dictionaries (his command of the languages is exquisite and nuanced). I am grateful to Mr. Doerr.
  • Unique storyline

    3
    By arich0815
    Interesting twist on the storyline from the perspective of both German and French sides. I agree with other reviews that it was often hard to follow the timelines and often found myself having to re-read chapters to make sure I understood. Will make for a beautiful movie.
  • Keeping hope alive

    5
    By CDM-Ramon
    Vivid storytelling combined with a story structure built like a pyramid to take the reader to a level of comprehension only possible in the very best fiction. Doerr mixes the most beautiful and grotesque of human behavior together without losing the message that we should all keep hope alive.