You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
eponineeurydice 's review for:
All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr
A high four star. This was very upsetting and disturbing and sad. It kinda left me feeling icky and drained and uncomfortable, for many reasons. It was also just weird, strange, and nothing was ever described very clearly, leaving the readers to figure things out. Let's talk about the characters, or one character in particular.
Our main bestie, our leading lady, Marie-Laure, is blind and that also happens to be her personality! Before I get into slightly negative territory, just wanna say that as a blind girl, it is so cool to see a fellow blind girl as a main character. I have only seen that in one other book from my childhood, which I can't find anywhere. Disability rep is so needed and so hard to find, and to see a blind girl as the star of the show is incredible. I just wish it was done better. The other thing is, not everyone's experience is the same. Just because I didn't connect to this character as a fellow blind person, that doesn't mean that the representation is invalid, or that the character's experiences are wrong. It just means that I have not had that personal experience.
I would say that the portrayal of this character, Marie-Laure, and her blindness, is very much romanticized. It is written from the perspective of a male who has never been blind before. It seems that he has done some research, but it also feels like he writes this for people who aren't blind as well, which is totally fine; that's going to be the target audience. But wouldn't it be so cool to have a book by a blind person, about a blind person, written so that blind people (along with everyone else) could enjoy it? That's just a little dream; maybe someday I'll write a book. But let's look at a few examples that could be taken sort-of as spoilers, but which I won't categorize as such for the sake of this message. This girl sees the world all in colors, and I don't remember them so I'm making them up; her father is orange, the air is silver, spring is yellow, things like that. Her world is evidently made of colors. This I can kind of understand, because she wasn't born blind... but still? The second thing is that her father builds a model of Paris for her, and she's able to navigate it without much trouble after that, by counting steps (which I have learned firsthand is an imprecise method and there are many better methods out there.) She also somehow learned Braille without a teacher, and she knows many things about the world in general that are just very visual; like everything about this new house she moves into, and whenever something is too visual or there's a visual thing that needs conveying, Doerr just switches POVs, which is a bit lazy if I may say that. The other thing is that she's seen as a pure angel, a blessing from God, too good for this world. But being blind is hard; and just because someone is blind doesn't mean they're perfect. I feel like the author used this character not for the sake of making blind people human, but more as a plot device. I could be wrong, but that's just how I felt; that the blind experience was romantacized, exaggerated or glossed over when convenient. Which makes me sad more than anything else.
But! The writing was gorgeous. The settings leaped off the page. And the other character, Werner, (a sighted boy...) was really well-done and had an amazing arc. This story would've been perfect if not for the fact that the main character was used as more of a plot device and a message than anything else. There was some golden moments in here though, some things that were true and did hit hard about being blind; not everything was bad, and I think that's progress. What saddens me is that I haven't seen other reviews mention this. I wanted so badly to love this, but for now it's going to be a four star; I think it had some beautiful quotes, a great storyline and message, but my hopes were slightly dashed with the blind character.
Our main bestie, our leading lady, Marie-Laure, is blind and that also happens to be her personality! Before I get into slightly negative territory, just wanna say that as a blind girl, it is so cool to see a fellow blind girl as a main character. I have only seen that in one other book from my childhood, which I can't find anywhere. Disability rep is so needed and so hard to find, and to see a blind girl as the star of the show is incredible. I just wish it was done better. The other thing is, not everyone's experience is the same. Just because I didn't connect to this character as a fellow blind person, that doesn't mean that the representation is invalid, or that the character's experiences are wrong. It just means that I have not had that personal experience.
I would say that the portrayal of this character, Marie-Laure, and her blindness, is very much romanticized. It is written from the perspective of a male who has never been blind before. It seems that he has done some research, but it also feels like he writes this for people who aren't blind as well, which is totally fine; that's going to be the target audience. But wouldn't it be so cool to have a book by a blind person, about a blind person, written so that blind people (along with everyone else) could enjoy it? That's just a little dream; maybe someday I'll write a book. But let's look at a few examples that could be taken sort-of as spoilers, but which I won't categorize as such for the sake of this message. This girl sees the world all in colors, and I don't remember them so I'm making them up; her father is orange, the air is silver, spring is yellow, things like that. Her world is evidently made of colors. This I can kind of understand, because she wasn't born blind... but still? The second thing is that her father builds a model of Paris for her, and she's able to navigate it without much trouble after that, by counting steps (which I have learned firsthand is an imprecise method and there are many better methods out there.) She also somehow learned Braille without a teacher, and she knows many things about the world in general that are just very visual; like everything about this new house she moves into, and whenever something is too visual or there's a visual thing that needs conveying, Doerr just switches POVs, which is a bit lazy if I may say that. The other thing is that she's seen as a pure angel, a blessing from God, too good for this world. But being blind is hard; and just because someone is blind doesn't mean they're perfect. I feel like the author used this character not for the sake of making blind people human, but more as a plot device. I could be wrong, but that's just how I felt; that the blind experience was romantacized, exaggerated or glossed over when convenient. Which makes me sad more than anything else.
But! The writing was gorgeous. The settings leaped off the page. And the other character, Werner, (a sighted boy...) was really well-done and had an amazing arc. This story would've been perfect if not for the fact that the main character was used as more of a plot device and a message than anything else. There was some golden moments in here though, some things that were true and did hit hard about being blind; not everything was bad, and I think that's progress. What saddens me is that I haven't seen other reviews mention this. I wanted so badly to love this, but for now it's going to be a four star; I think it had some beautiful quotes, a great storyline and message, but my hopes were slightly dashed with the blind character.