A review by omniscienttaco
All the Light You Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I liked the prose in this book, but man was it a long read (or listen, it’s a 15 hour long audiobook, and I had to wait for it to become available again though my library). I can’t justify giving this a 5 star rating due to some decisions on how to portray the war. It’s a little too… baby-proofed? It reads like it was intended to be included in a middle school English class, but this book is long. 

I enjoyed the plot progression, and the jumping around in timelines was never confusing for me. The writing was lovely, but it was also drawn out enough that I could leave my phone blaring the audiobook in another room and come back, not feeling like I had missed anything crucial. 

While this book tried to humanize every character, to show that war is horrible for everyone….. I don’t think it did enough to show how horrible Nazis were, how passionate for their political views, how violent and angry young men can be. I dont feel like this book was intentionally sanitized, just be aware that there is some suspension of disbelief involved for everything to come together towards the end. I’m personally okay with some of that, I still overall liked the book. However, I didn’t come away from this book feeling like it blew my mind or anything. Just felt like a well written average fictional WWII story. 
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