All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

 All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr | 531 Pages

Marie-Laure went blind at age 6. She lives in Paris with her father, spending her days at the Museum of Natural History, where he guides her into independence with a miniature model of the city she "reads" like her braille books.

Werner is a German orphan, living at the mouth of the coal mines that took his father and will take him in the future. As he grows, his brilliant mind for radios offers him a way out... into the Third Reich. 

The plot jumps back and forth from Marie and Werner's growing up years to World War 2, culminating at the siege on the French city of Saint-Malo which is the one day their paths cross.

Doerr has a way with words and images. It's very descriptive; many lines are sticking with me to ponder even days after finishing the book. You can tell he took 10 years to craft this literary gem and layer together all the elements of it. Some people may dislike the sympathetic approach to Nazi characters, but I appreciate the humanity and take it as a warning - we all have choices every day. "Don't you want to be alive before you die?"

Read for our June meeting of the Anything Goes Book Club