A review by pascalthehoff
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

3.0

'All the Light We Cannot See' is an unusually personal story about WWII. It focuses on the fates of a few characters instead of displaying WWII on a more general level. As such its success in keeping the reader's attention largely depends on the quality of the characters. Unfortunately those were, although quite unique and likable, just a bit too onedimensional for me to get REALLY invested. A cause for this may also be the incessant change of scene between the German side and the French side after roughly every second or third page. This might help in making the book feel fast-paced, but it really distracted me from being fully immersed in one setting. Maybe it's just me, but I had a hard time focusing on each side of the story, because they were always interrupted, just as I got into a proper reading flow. That constant switching between sides made the book a drag to read at certain points, although I must admit, it was still worth that bit of trouble in the end.