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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I wanted to love this so bad, but it was just so slow. The story is beautiful but it was just so hard to get into a flow of reading.
This book was beautifully sad. It tells the lives of two young people during WWII; One in France and one in Germany. Both thrust into situations they do not want to be in and both doing whatever is necessary to stay alive and safe. This story details the horrors and losses that went with WWII while also making it very much fiction with the story of a special gemstone.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Med vackert och levande språk, skildras tyska och franska ungdomars upplevelser under kriget. Vi kommer de nära och berörs.
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The best part about All the Light We Cannot See is undoubtedly Anthony Doerr's prose. The mastery he exhibits over strong, assertive sentences with precise, specific verbs makes the scenes come alive with an intensity that's simply remarkable. He bombards the senses with stimulating descriptions, so much so that it becomes overwhelming sometimes. The imagery he employs are mostly realistic; they are rarely poetic, but when they are, goddamnit! they fucking are. I can still see "leafless trees stand atop slag heaps like skeleton hands shoved up from the underworld" and "[a] cookbook [that] lies facedown in her path like a shotgunned bird." In short, the man can write.
Now that I have finished gushing on the prose, I find myself not able to praise the other aspects of the book equally. The characters are not that interesting. Most of the time they are either passive or just going with the flow. And that is the major theme of the book: that simple people get dragged into worldwide tragedies with nary a decision taken by them, that we are all puppets being tugged at by the strings of fate. And I appreciate the theme. But nonetheless, passive characters make for ineffective stories.
The plot was split into three threads. Two of them were following two children from vastly different areas and we get to see how each of them is affected by the war from either sides of the spectrum. But the third is about a Nazi seeking a jewel! I mean, when did it become a spin-off of Indiana Jones?
The chapters were small, each essentially just one scene long, which makes it harder to get absorbed in the setting. Jumping from one place to another works fine in the movies (at least in thriller/action movies), but it doesn't in the books. Books need time for its characters and places to pop. That's just how it is.
Although it may not be a profound reading experience capable of changing your life, it is a tremendously written piece of art painstakingly put together with care and precision, and that is apparent from the first page to the last.
Now that I have finished gushing on the prose, I find myself not able to praise the other aspects of the book equally. The characters are not that interesting. Most of the time they are either passive or just going with the flow. And that is the major theme of the book: that simple people get dragged into worldwide tragedies with nary a decision taken by them, that we are all puppets being tugged at by the strings of fate. And I appreciate the theme. But nonetheless, passive characters make for ineffective stories.
The plot was split into three threads. Two of them were following two children from vastly different areas and we get to see how each of them is affected by the war from either sides of the spectrum. But the third is about a Nazi seeking a jewel! I mean, when did it become a spin-off of Indiana Jones?
The chapters were small, each essentially just one scene long, which makes it harder to get absorbed in the setting. Jumping from one place to another works fine in the movies (at least in thriller/action movies), but it doesn't in the books. Books need time for its characters and places to pop. That's just how it is.
Although it may not be a profound reading experience capable of changing your life, it is a tremendously written piece of art painstakingly put together with care and precision, and that is apparent from the first page to the last.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
A reread. Just as good the second time around if not even better.