All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

This is the first novel I have read by Anthony Doerr and it is heart achingly beautiful. Doerr takes the viewpoint of a blind French girl in Paris and a German boy and weaves a tale around their lives from 1934 to present. Doerr doesn't tell the tale in a linear path but takes the reader from past to further past to present. His writing is clear and succinct filled with description without bogging the reader down. There are many characters that play an integral part in the story as well the legend surrounding a single blue diamond.

World War II is a fascinating time period for me. I'm sure many cringe at my word choice of fascinating. I receive different reactions when I tell people I have been reading a biography of Hitler. But to read and watch accounts of lives that were forever changed (or obliterated) makes me grateful for the time period I live in now but also curious to learn how social, economic, political, and psychological (to name a few) aspects of a time period can create a perfect storm.

I picked up this book and couldn't put it down. (I apologize: I am still learning how to write reviews without telling to much.) You keep learning more about how the outside world is changing in these children's lives and how these changes are affecting their small worlds. With the French girl, Marie-Laure, the reader learns how a child "saw" and felt the changes in her homeland. She is dependent on others because of her blindness yet a fierce independence grows in her as she ages. Children are often not told everything; yet they are very perceptive and create their own thoughts about the world around them. The German boy, Werner, is a genius with radios and it seems anything mechanical. This leads him to a prestigious school for boys and on to the war. His inner struggle with what he is told to believe (by the Reich), what he has learned about humanity before the school, and what he endures and sees in his life is a continual battle for him.

Although some will think it is a snapshot of the war; I would argue that it is more a snapshot of human integrity and survival. I continued to read to see where their lives intersect and then how they reconcile with themselves and the other characters as well as the world post war. Doerr is definitely an author that I will read again.