The Review of All The Light We Cannot See - Finally!

One of the interesting things about having your knee replaced is the amazing amount of difficulty you have sleeping.  Who knew? With many extra hours of the day (night?) on my hands, and only so many Gilmore Girl reruns I can watch, I recently took a break from the YA books to read All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  It was absolutely astounding.

The story itself is highly engaging.  Set in World War II France and Germany, the book alternates between the stories of the blind French girl, Marie Laure LeBlanc and the young German, Werner Pfennig.  Each grows and develops over the course of the story, starting as young children with interests, hopes, fears.  Ultimately, the war intrudes on their lives and teaches them about suffering and cruelty, but also about kindness and the ability to find joy in small things, as well.  The plot, the characters, the setting all weave together to build a story that is rich and complex and, ultimately, goes beyond entertaining the reader to making him/her think.

While I read, I also found myself thinking how impressive it is that the author appears to have a very expansive knowledge of a wide variety of subjects including history, natural science, and mechanics.  Reading the book from that perspective, I found myself almost as interested in the information I was learning as in the progress of the story.  The author’s setting details were particularly on point.  I’m fortunate enough to spend every other summer in France with my husband’s family and I could clearly envision all of the people and places I know in the author’s descriptions.

As though all of these things aren’t enough to make the story great, the biggest reason I enjoyed it so much was the beauty of the language.  In thinking over the story afterwards, it occurred to me that the language was used to describe things the way one would explain them to a blind person – the sights, the smells, the sounds, the sensations.

This book is way too good for me to even suggest it might be lame, so I’m going to skip that particular part of my usual review.  Let me just say that this should most absolutely be your next summer read.