Recently in our PLP class we have been learning about the Second World War. This has been a pretty big unit that we started just before spring break and personally I love learning about this sort of history so I was really excited. To start off this unit we were assigned to read a WWII book. The book options we got to choose from were All The Light We Cannot See, Code Name Verity and Unbroken. I chose All The Light We Cannot See which is an award winning novel by Anthony Doerr. This is a book I really enjoyed reading and would definitely recommend to other people. After finishing reading the book we then were tasked with writing a book review which showed our opinion of the book as well as a little bit of a summary without spoiling anything.
Here is my book review:
A heartfelt WW2 story that brings two totally different characters together
By Sofia Bergman
April 16, 2018
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE
By Anthony Doerr
P.p. 544
Published May 6, 2014
All The Light We Cannot See is an emotionally captivating book that tells two stories, one of a blind French girl named Marie-Laure and the other a German boy named Werner. Throughout this novel Anthony Doerr captures the extremely different perspectives of these two characters and their struggles during the Second World War. In my opinion this definitely brings this fictional story to life showing the horrors of war from multiple perspectives.
Marie-Laure views the world unlike any other characters in the novel, this makes it difficult to imagine what she experiences as she mentions “To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness”. However the way Marie-Laure is described to feel everyday objects that most of us take advantage of, brings all 5 senses to life. The way her story is told is something that really captivated my attention and left me wanting to read more, although it’s hard to imagine the struggle that she goes through. Her father Daniel Leblanc, the head locksmith at The Museum of Natural History in Paris protects Marie-Laure and the museum’s possessions at all costs. To aid Marie-Laure after going blind at only the age of 6, her father replicates an exact model of Paris which “contains scale replicas of the hundreds of houses and shops and hotels”. The detail and craftsmanship explained in this model of the city from “minute benches, the smallest no larger than apple seeds” to “dot the tiny public squares”. These details are explained in great detail creating not only a vivid picture in reader’s minds but enhance the storytelling aspect of the book. Marie-Laure and her father fled from Paris to Saint-Malo, a walled city where her great uncle lives there lives change. This city is an unfamiliar and quite frightening place considering Marie-Laure has no idea of what the place where she is staying looks like.
Saint-Malo WWII
Werner a small, blond hair blue eye German boy who grew up in a orphanage with his sister Jutta, in a German town called Zollverein. Destined to work in the coal mines his father died in, Werner’s brilliant mind finds a way to avoid what people say is his future. The genius that he is, Werner self taught himself to repair radios leading him to become a student at a Hitler youth school.
Hilter Youth
Throughout his experiences at the school he always stuck by a quote from one of the radio shows he listen to, “open your eyes, and see what you can with them before they close forever”. Less and less letters were sent between Jutta and Werner, who at age 16 was told he was 18 so he could be drafted. Just five blocks away from Marie-Laure in Saint Malo was Werner trapped in the ruins of a grand hotel bombed by the Allied forces. Throughout Werner’s part of the story one thing that really made me think of the reality of the war were the awful things that were depicted of what the soldiers did to many innocent people. This was long before Marie-Laure and Werner had met each other but was the first sign in the connection of their story. Werner’s side of the story takes many new turns throughout the novel with many experience that don’t stray far from some of the realities people went through during WWII.
Although at times the story becomes a little confusing when being bumped back and forth between different time periods during the war. The short chapters make the story into a interesting, engaging and powerful plot line that allows readers to see into a new light. This novel is definitely one of the best books I’ve read and and deserves the praise it’s receive including the Pulitzer’s Prize for Fiction, Goodreads choice award and the Audio Award for Fiction. The author behind this award winning novel, that captivates many readers including myself is Anthony Doerr. Doerr was born in Cleveland, Ohio and gained widespread recognition from All The Light We Cannot See.