Reviews with content warning for Blood - All the Light We Cannot See

Title: All the Light We Cannot See
Author: Anthony Doerr
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 3.00
Pub Date: May 6, 2014

T H R E E • W O R D S

Daring • Vivid • Dense

📖 S Y N O P S I S

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.

💭 T H O U G H T S

All the Light We Cannot See has sat unread on my shelf for far too long, yet with the release of the mini-series slated for December, I knew there was no better time to finally dive in. My expectations were incredibly high knowing it's beloved by so many, yet the size really had me hesitating. Unfortunately, the timing just wasn't right and my sky high expectations left me feeling unsatisfied and disappointed.

I'll start out by saying the imagery was stunning, the writing was evocative, and the relationship between Marie-Laure and her father was beautiful. I greatly appreciated the way she learned to find her own way in the world. It also paints a realistic depiction of young men being drawn into the Hitler Youth. However, the structure made it hard to follow the story at times, which made it unnecessarily long.

Even though I enjoyed the story overall, I never found myself totally invested. I know part of that was the timing and my expectations, but another part is just poor execution in putting the story onto paper. This is one case where I think I may enjoy the movie more than I did the book and I look forward to watching it sometime soon.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• WWII historical fiction buffs

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don't you do the same?"

"It's embarrassingly plain how inadequate language is."

Content Warnings

sunshine671reader's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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pigeongreen's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

The beauty of the writing and story cannot be overstated. Be prepared to absorb, to forget, to re-read, and re-read again — paragraphs, pages, chapters. This author fits so much meaning into so few words. This story spans decades and nations, grabs you by the elbow and leads you along the journey, at times gently, at others aggressively. Savor the experience and emotions and don’t be surprised if a few tears fall.

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bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

The first part pulled me in, but afterwards it slowed down a bit until finally picking up again around 100 pages in.

The novel is split into parts that span several years with POVs mostly from Marie-Laure and Werner but we get some chapters from other characters occasionally too. I really enjoyed the switching POVs and the sort of timeline split of before/after the siege of Saint-Malo!

Some of Werner’s chapters were a little overly descriptive for my taste. Like I didn’t need a whole paragraph explaining a math equation.

I really liked the short chapters, it helped with reading it in spare moments and being motivated to pick it up more especially considering how long it is. Personally I don’t think it needed to be 500+ pages, any historical fiction over 400 pages is doing too much 😅

The characters were well developed and the writing overall was atmospheric, making me feel like I was there witnessing everything in front of me.

Now aside from the length and dragging pace at times, this was shaping up to be an amazing novel, at least 5 stars, until

the rape scene in the final 40 pages, which was totally was unnecessary (but the author is a man so what do you expect). I know it’s historically accurate and it happened to many women during the war, but there are ways to write it that imply it rather than describe it if the author really wanted to include that detail. Also we barely hear from Jutta or Frau Elena for most of the book BUT NOW we hear from them and this is what we get? Totally unnecessary. It would’ve made more sense if we had been getting Jutta’s perspective the whole time as well, if the authors goal was truly to show all the sufferings of the war, including the Germans themselves.

It felt like a disconnected, out of pocket scene just for the sake of having a rape scene. Just because it’s historically accurate does not mean it’s necessary or should be put into the story, and again, there are better ways to write it if you feel it’s a needed addition 🙃 The story was basically done- it’s serves ZERO purpose to the plot or Jutta’s character- truly pointless and typical “men writing women”

It was a great book otherwise but that scene ruined it and I’m dropping down my rating because of that absolute nonsense. Also as someone who has read a lot of world war 2 historical fiction novels, this one isn’t all that special story-wise. The writing was pretty good but adds nothing to the genre (in my opinion) because it’s really just another “wow what horrible things happening to this young girl but she’s being so brave” and “you know guys, what if not all Nazis were bad, like this young soldier here.”

Content Warnings