Review: All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr



Challenges: 
Diversity Bingo 2017: Visually impaired main character
52 Books Around the Year: A New York Times Best Seller

This book is set before, during and after World War II in France and Germany. We follow two perspectives; Marie-Laure in France and Werner in Germany. Marie-Laure goes blind at a young age and her single father makes a monumental effort to teach her how to navigate her world, building her a model of their entire neighborhood to help her find her way. Meanwhile Werner lives at an orphanage dreaming of escaping the small town and the coal mines that will swallow him up as soon as he turns 15. His extraordinary capabilities with radios and mathematics gives him a ticket out, but he soon learns that that ticket comes at a heavy price. When war breaks out Marie-Laure and her father must leave Paris, and with them they bring something that will make them a target for the German forces. 

This story is definitely a slow burn. I liked it, but not a whole lot happened plotwise. I expected Werner and Marie-Laure to meet pretty quickly, but for the largest part of the story they are separate and not even closing in on one another. I liked all of the characters and thought they were very diverse and well developed, but as I said it was a slow burn. 


I gave this 3 stars, maybe 3.5, out of 5. 

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