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What Members Thought
I am incredibly glad I picked this book back up. I first attempted to read it a few years ago, after it won several awards and was being lauded as simply amazing. I was apparently not in a good place for its complex seriousness as I couldn't get myself interested in the story. This time around, historical fiction was back to being my jam. I picked up the audio, which was a fantastic way to experience this story...especially given the attention of the novel to the sense of hearing via the radio a
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Oh. I desperately wanted to love this, but I just didn't. It was, at times, beautifully written, and certainly not as pretentious as I'd expect for a modern Pulitzer winner. It was also quite easy to read.
But. The pacing, the back & forth between both the characters and the times. It just didn't work for me - as in, I feel like it really hampered my ability to connect with the story and the characters. The little magical element of the story seemed out of place, and almost pointless.
I was glad ...more
But. The pacing, the back & forth between both the characters and the times. It just didn't work for me - as in, I feel like it really hampered my ability to connect with the story and the characters. The little magical element of the story seemed out of place, and almost pointless.
I was glad ...more
This book is everything that good historical fiction should be. The book is a lyrical intertwining of stories of Marie-Laure, blind from the age of six, and Werner, a German orphan who is brilliant with radios and how both struggle through the horror of the second world war. The two come together only briefly but it is as if they are being drawn closer and closer all the time. The pace of the novel is just fantastic and the jumping back and forth from the time before the war through to the siege
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Such beautiful writing! I’m not sure how to describe it but it’s definitely the writing that’s pulled me along through this book. It is just so full of wonder; the beauty of the world, the strength of people, and in contradiction, the ugliness of people. How such juxtaposition exists!? I was reading this together with a colleague and she admitted that she’d have given up very early on if I wasn’t reading with her. It’s a very slow moving book and rather difficult to get into; too many switching
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This was very good, very haunting, very sad. It was difficult to get through, not because it wasn't interesting. It was definitely that, but it was so heavy. Much heavier than what I am used to.
And I never thought I'd find myself rooting for one of the German soldiers in WWII, but that's exactly what I found myself doing. I give much credit to the author for finding a way to get to that human part of me that strips off the uniforms, the hateful paraphernalia and got down to the core of the pers ...more
And I never thought I'd find myself rooting for one of the German soldiers in WWII, but that's exactly what I found myself doing. I give much credit to the author for finding a way to get to that human part of me that strips off the uniforms, the hateful paraphernalia and got down to the core of the pers ...more
2015 Alex Selection
2015 Pulitzer Winner
2015 Pulitzer Winner
Aug 02, 2014
Olivermagnus
rated it
it was amazing
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review of another edition
Shelves:
historical-fiction,
2021
Set in WWII France and Germany, All The Light We Cannot See is a multifaceted novel filled with finely drawn and completely realistic characters. The first is Marie-Laure, a young blind girl in Paris, whose father is a locksmith at the Natural History Museum. She has learned to feel her way around her neighborhood because her father carved an elaborate scale model of the city for her. She studies it with her hands and learns to navigate the streets by herself. Her father also buys her books in B
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There is nothing I can say about this book/recording that hasn't already been said. It is a really good book. I listened to the audio version read by Zach Appelman and although it was SO long, I thought it was wonderful. I had a few minor gripes, the biggest being that Marie-Laure seemed a bit too adept given her blindness, but not being blind, I really have no right to assume that. And the fate of the diamond was a bit too nebulous, considering the importance of the stone to the story, but I wi
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Wow ten years it to Doerr and I can see why. This book is beautifully written. The characters are rich with depth and the story ties all of it together but leaves some mystery. The prose is visual and colorful. I loved it.
Apr 25, 2014
Lisa
marked it as to-read
Jun 22, 2014
Katharine
marked it as to-read
Sep 04, 2014
Marie Claude
marked it as to-read
Sep 26, 2014
Connie N.
marked it as to-read
Oct 18, 2014
Nell
marked it as on-my-shelves
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review of another edition
Shelves:
awards-finalists,
another-time
Jan 06, 2015
Chelsey
marked it as to-read
