Breathe To Read

Breathe To Read

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Book Review #4 (2015 Challenge), All The Light We Cannot See

Today I am going to review the book "All The Light We Cannot See" (read in January 2015)



This book was from my 2015 Reading Challenge category: A book set in a different country

This was a great book.  I had a hard time putting it down, and  - even though it was over 500 pages - I finished it in a few days.  Did I ignore a few house chores to read instead?  Yes.  Yes I did.

The story is about a young girl  - Marie-Laure - from about the age of 6-16 who is blind and living in France (first Paris and then Saint Malo) during WWII with her father.  The other major character in the book is a boy named Werner who is an orphan from Germany.  It covers his ages from about 6-18 as well.  Their paths never cross until the very end of the book.  They don't speak the same language, they have very different lives, but yet - they meet each other.

It was pretty powerful.

The story isn't a hard read, and will hold your interest.  Marie-Laure and her father must flee Paris when the war starts, and they end up in beautiful Saint Malo living with her great-uncle (who is an agoraphobic) and his house keeper.  Werner, on the other hand, is discovered to be a brilliant engineer from an early age (can fix about any radio he comes across) and is quickly admitted to a science academy for Hitler youth.  It covered the span of their young life, and then jumps in the end to the year 1974 and then to 2014.  I love a book that shows what happens to the characters when the "worst" is behind them and how it shaped their lives.

I wish I would have read this before we traveled to Paris this summer.  I could see some of the places they talked about, and I think I would have tried to include Saint Malo into our trip.

I give it 5 s.  Good read - don't miss it!

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