All the Light We Cannot See

This is the most beautifully written and moving book I have ever read. It is scrupulously researched. It doesn't shy away form the horror of war and what happens to humans when they turn into monsters. Some hold onto their humanity which is waht makes this book so very precious.

At first the writing style put me off but then very quickly I was being pulled along by the story and became completely immersed in it. This is the first book by Anthony Doerr that I have read.

The thought of walking around an occupied town in France during WWII terrifies me. The prospect of running into Nazis, looking for any excuse to arrest me, is the thing of nightmares.

But my fears shrink to nothing compared to the experience of blind sixteen-year-old Marie-Laure attempting to navigate war-torn Saint-Malo from the memory of a handmade tabletop model. The strength of courage she shows in this story has never left me.

I loved this book mainly for its characters but also for the way that the story portrayed historical events from both sides of the conflict and the effect of war on people and their beliefs. The relationship between the caring father and blind daughter brought tears to my eyes, and his use of models to help her understand her neighborhood was inspired.

As the former curator of gemstones at the Natural History Museum in London, the story about a lost, missing or fake diamond from the Paris Museum of Natural History was captivating. Months after finishing the book, I still… show more.

I love well-researched fiction that reads like history. I love this book enough that I’ve read it twice. I keep it in a special section of my library reserved for books that I will never give away or loan to friends for fear of never getting them back.

I love that this book inspires me to write fiction, something I ought to get cracking on now that I’ve written almost thirty history books. I love the characters, I love that I can’t put them down (even when I know what is next), and I love revisiting my time with the… show more.

This book, with its prose as poetry, made me want to read it again the minute I finished. To absorb Mr. Doerr’s majestic words was to be transformed into a little blind girl with the heart of a lion, the wit of a comic, the determination of a world leader. I became Marie-Laure LeBlanc and felt all the while sublimely grateful that I could see. And then I met Werner Flemming and wept for him. I understood him. I was deeply moved by him. 

I felt it was profoundly destined that these two should meet and fall in love, but… show more.

This book has everything I look for in great storytelling in spades: real people doing their best to cope with extraordinary circumstances, masterfully crafted by an author who loves his work.

Some will call this a historical novel; some will pigeonhole it as a war novel. In my view, it easily exceeds all such classifications. It is an incredible piece of work. I use this book for reference, to remind me how it’s done. 

I loved this book because it’s a World War II story (my favorite time period), which I can’t get enough of, and its protagonist, Marie-Laure, is a young blind girl. By the time she’s twelve, she has learned to navigate Nazi-occupied Paris from a miniature of the city her father has built for her.

This is a girl with many fears, her blindness being just one, but she pushes through them all in order to help her country overcome its worst nightmare. Her bravery is off the charts!

I was captivated by this powerful novel, which tells the story of a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France.

I especially liked the way Doerr weaves scientific and philosophical references to light, to seeing, and not seeing into the story. I loved the two main characters, Parisian Marie-Laure, who has been blind since she was six years old, and a German orphan called Werner, who is a member of the Hitler Youth.

I was especially gripped by Marie and her father, Daniel’s escape from Paris ahead of the German invasion, and the scenes… show more.

Last summer, I visited Saint-Malo in Brittany, France, an extraordinary walled city on the Atlantic Coast where this beautiful novel is set.

Wars breed everyday heroes, and this book introduces us to one, the blind, young Marie-Laure. Despite Saint-Malo being under German occupation in WW2, she courageously risks her own life by using a radio to send daily dispatches from her attic to the Allied Forces. Her stoic heroism and valuable intelligence ultimately play a pivotal role in the Allies liberating Saint-Malo and afterward, the whole of France.

A well-deserved international bestseller, the book powerfully underscores the notion that ordinary… show more.