All the Light We Cannot See

A Novel

De: Anthony Doerr

Narrado por: Zach Appelman

Winner of the Audie Award for Fiction

*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti*

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book 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).

Be prepared to love the characters.

A wonderful story of young people caught in the net of the Nazis in WWII. In this book Anthony Doerr shows the tragedy from both inside the Nazi party, and on the life of a blind young French woman. A classic story about doing the right thing, at the risk of your own life. I loved the book.

Nice story but events disjunctive and pacing slow

I liked the concept of the book. Chapters alternate between the PoV of the German boy and the French, blind girl, whose destinies ultimately intersect. Events were not presented chronologically but were also not simply a flashback or two, so it was sometimes hard to follow. After a certain point, the story kind of dragged. I have the feeling that the emotional impact of the book would have been greater if it were shorter. Nevertheless, the painful experience of growing up during the late 30's and 40's comes through clearly. The prose is very good; descriptions are vivid and lifelike. I could have done without the fantasies and dream sequences.
The narrator did a very good job. I wonder whether I would have finished without it.

A Technical Masterpiece

Despite my 4 star rating, in many ways this book was perfect. After reading it, I understood the numerous awards, prizes and strong reviews it received.

However, what was perfect about this book was the author's perfect understanding of the writing craft. Reading it, I felt as though every, single word was carefully considered and endlessly analyzed before it was selected to fit in just the right sentence in just that exact paragraph. Reading it from the perspective of admiring the craftsmanship was a joy. I always appreciate an author who has such a strong grasp on language that the words alone become a song, with no background music necessary.

The plot was original. It made World War II real and presented a new perspective on what was the first major event of the age of communication, an event that has been endlessly chronicled in books, TV and film. The fresh perspective alone was quite an accomplishment.

Most of the characters were engaging, likable and so alive they leapt off the pages. My favorite was probably Madame Manec, but I found all o the French characters engaging. I didn't feel the same connection to Werner and the other German characters, Most of them seemed like the typical caricaturistic Nazis and Nazi sympathizers. I think other books have portrayed the true immorality of the Nazi movement better, because they are portrayed as human as the rest of us, with gifts and faults, who made a conscious decision to participate in unpardonable actions. But the weakness in the German characters' development was not enough to offset the other positives about the book.

What kept this from being a truly 5 star book for me was the ending. The last 15% of the book was basically an epilogue. Epilogues work in books where the future is unknown and the reader has come to care so much about the characters that they really want to know what happened to them after the climax. But we all knew what happened in the future in this book. And we knew what happened to many of the major characters. So tying up loose ends wasn't really necessary. To me, it seemed like the author or an editor decided that the book ended on a "downer" and so they tacked on a brief update on the major characters that were still alive in a misguided attempt to put a more positive spin on the story. But it didn't need a more positive spin and what was added wasn't positive anyway. I think if this book had ended with the death in the woods, the power of this story would have increased dramatically.

The narration was wonderful.

I highly recommend this book.

Beautiful language

Not one, but two unique perspectives on World War II. The language sparkles and matches to dual plot line so brilliantly that I was completely enthralled.

I'm glad I listened to it but won't do it again.

I kept thinking things would get better for the people in the story.
The book is well written.
I usually listen to classics and can't really find a good author that develops characters while keeping the story simple & entertaining. Doerr is exceptional.
The story was awful and yet it was about experiences that people had to endure. I'm grateful I didn't live during the era the story was written in and I'm glad I finished the book...thinking about the characters and what they went through makes my life seem like a vacation.