Anthony Doerr

All the Light We Cannot See (Paperback)

$12.36
(4.8) 4.8 stars out of 10 reviews 10 reviews
$12.36
$12.36
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All the Light We Cannot See (Paperback)

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4.8 out of 5stars
(10 reviews)
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Most helpful positive review

5.00 out of 5 stars review
Verified Purchaser
05/30/2021
What a wonderful book! This is the…
What a wonderful book! This is the story of Marie-Laure, a blind girl living in Paris and Werner, an orphan living in a coal mining town in Germany. They live separate lives at the beginning of World War II who wouldn't in normal circumstances ever connect. The story tells about their lives leading to a fateful day during the war and the choices made. The descriptions of the characters, the people they know the settings all weave to form a beautiful tale. This is a story I'd recommend and will read again.
mmoj

Most helpful negative review

3.00 out of 5 stars review
Verified Purchaser
07/08/2021
I am still trying to work out what,…
I am still trying to work out what, exactly, I thought of this one. Some things I liked. Some I didn't. It was slow at times. It was beautiful at times. There were weird anachronisms. It was stilted at times, verbose at others. It ran a little long. I liked the characters. I don't know where I'll eventually settle. It was a paradox.
lost_in_here
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    07/09/2021
    What a wonderful book! This is the…
    What a wonderful book! This is the story of Marie-Laure, a blind girl living in Paris and Werner, an orphan living in a coal mining town in Germany. They live separate lives at the beginning of World War II who wouldn't in normal circumstances ever connect. The story tells about their lives leading to a fateful day during the war and the choices made. The descriptions of the characters, the people they know the settings all weave to form a beautiful tale. This is a story I'd recommend and will read again.
    mmoj
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    07/08/2021
    Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book…
    Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book of WWWII from the perspective of a young German boy and young French girl. Kept my attention throughout. poetic writing with great imagery. Loved the story and never sure how the book would end. Kept you cheering for the main characters.
    kheders
  • 3.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    07/08/2021
    I am still trying to work out what,…
    I am still trying to work out what, exactly, I thought of this one. Some things I liked. Some I didn't. It was slow at times. It was beautiful at times. There were weird anachronisms. It was stilted at times, verbose at others. It ran a little long. I liked the characters. I don't know where I'll eventually settle. It was a paradox.
    lost_in_here
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    07/08/2021
    I didn't know what to expect when I…
    I didn't know what to expect when I started All the Light We Cannot See. Right away, I was concerned that there were going to be too many characters and I wouldn't be able to fully connect with any of them enough to keep me engaged in what is a pretty long book. What happened, instead, is that, to varying degrees, I cared about them all. Once the characters were introduced, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how they were all connected. It didn't take long, however, for me to stop thinking so much about that and become completely engrossed in their individual situations. When I did start to unravel the connections, I wasn't disappointed. Twice I could feel my eyes widen with the realization and I wished I had someone close by that I could share it with. This is a beautifully written, thought-provoking book. There were many passages that forced me to stop and re-read them because the prose was just that gorgeous. Some of the metaphors demanded that extra attention. The author's descriptions allowed me to be fully present with the characters. I haven't been this moved by a writer's style in a long time. My only regret is that I didn't have more time to read it in much larger chunks. Having to listen to only a few chapters at a time for most of the book made it harder to stay connected to the characters. But even with that obstacle, I still fell in love with Werner and Marie-Laure. Hell, I even felt that I understood the "bad guy", Von Rumpel. Part of me wishes the book would have ended well before it actually did, but another part is glad to have had some closure - not a lot of closure, but some. I know I'm late to the party here but if anyone out there is still on the fence about diving in, don't wait any longer. I can definitely see myself reading this one again. There aren't many mainstream novels that I reread but I'm certain I missed details on my first time through. I received a copy of the book from the publisher via NetGalley. Once I realized I'd wouldn't have time to read it with my eyes, I picked up the audio version and am happy I did. To hear the French and German pronounced helped to keep me immersed in the story. Besides the fact that the narrator did a great job.
    amcheri
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    07/08/2021
    An amazing novel. No wonder it won…
    An amazing novel. No wonder it won the Pulitzer. The characters, the prose, the biology lessons, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". It all comes together in a stunning tale of life, love, war, sacrifice, and compassion. It is hard to explain the story only with words. It draws the reader in using many different emotions, emotions caused not only by the storyline itself but also by the turn of a phrase or just the right word at the right time. I loved it!
    khoyt
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/30/2021
    What a wonderful book! This is the…
    What a wonderful book! This is the story of Marie-Laure, a blind girl living in Paris and Werner, an orphan living in a coal mining town in Germany. They live separate lives at the beginning of World War II who wouldn't in normal circumstances ever connect. The story tells about their lives leading to a fateful day during the war and the choices made. The descriptions of the characters, the people they know the settings all weave to form a beautiful tale. This is a story I'd recommend and will read again.
    mmoj
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/24/2021
    What a wonderful book! This is the…
    What a wonderful book! This is the story of Marie-Laure, a blind girl living in Paris and Werner, an orphan living in a coal mining town in Germany. They live separate lives at the beginning of World War II who wouldn't in normal circumstances ever connect. The story tells about their lives leading to a fateful day during the war and the choices made. The descriptions of the characters, the people they know the settings all weave to form a beautiful tale. This is a story I'd recommend and will read again.
    mmoj
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/23/2021
    It is nearly impossible to find the…
    It is nearly impossible to find the words to describe this elegant, mesmerizing, story of two people caught up in WWII. A young blind French girl and an orphan German boy and the unimaginable affect of science, music and words in a book. This will easily make my list of the best books of the year.
    mysterymax
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/21/2021
    The walled city of Saint Malo,…
    The walled city of Saint Malo, France was almost completely destroyed by American bombs in World War II. This novel recounts the story of a blind girl trying to survive the bombing as well as the Germans who occupied her home town. We also follow the life of a German soldier. The book alternates between the two lives, as they grow up and during the war. The format of short titled sections, combined with the author's easy flowing, descriptive style make this a compelling read. These sections are grouped within the month and year that they occurred. These larger sections are not chronological and I am not sure why. This is somewhat confusing, but the masterful storytelling makes it easy to follow. I really love the book, both for the interesting story lines and historic context! Both main characters are very likeable and give us a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people.
    jwood652
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/19/2021
    When I was about 60 pages away from…
    When I was about 60 pages away from finishing this book, an acquaintence who had read it told me that I would hate the way it ended. Actually, at abut that same point, I had been wondering about how it might end, hoping it would end one way and fearing it would end another. When it ended, I was very pleased with the decison the author, Anthony Doerr, had madeabout its ending. It felt authentic and honest and entirely consistent with the rest of the book. As I reflect o the ending and the book as a whole, I am becoming more impressed with it than I was even when I posted my 5 star rating. I belive that this is not just another good book, a good pices of historical fiction. It is more than that. The characters are well drawn and believable and the situations and events of the book are realistic. But you would expect that in any good piece of fiction. This book offers characters and incidents wthat are beyond what they appear to be on the surface. The characters are archetypes of the people who would have suffered through the war. Each carefull crafted character represents the thousands, perhaps millions, who would have been in the circumstances the characters are in. Civilians who just want to go on with their lives, soldiers who didn't want to be soldiers and their opposite, the loyalists who believed in their government and in what it stood for. Each and every character in this book, whether a major character or a lesser one, stands for similar real people as they would be in the throes of a brutal war. The situations and events of the story siimilarly represent the kinds and types of events a lengthy, brutal and futile war would include. Even the central unifiying item, the rare diamond, represents something larger than itself. It represents the loss of a nation when it is despoiled by a war, a war it did not want and rralized could only end in returning to a peace unlike the one it had before the war. Mt friend was wrong about the ending of this book. Authenticity triumphs over sentimentality and the novel, and its readers, are the richer for it.
    Paul-the-well-read
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