I find this review a bit difficult to write because honestly, I don’t know where to start! All the Light We Cannot See is like no other book that I’ve read before. On its surface, this book is about a young German boy with a talent for fixing radios and a blind French girl who possesses a curiosity and courage way beyond her years – both thrown helplessly into a world torn apart by war and devastation and the impact this has on their lives. But this book is so much more than that! It is about survival, love, courage, family, friendship, etc but on a deeper level, it is also a "study" on human nature and what it means to "do what is expected" versus "do what is right."
The author Anthony Doerr has a masterful way with words – the richness in detail with which he describes every character / event / scene in the book paints a vivid picture of what life was like in the midst of war, yet he does so in a manner that does not take away from the story itself. He does not bog the story down with long, tedious paragraphs or pages and pages of detailed description that make readers like me want to just skip ahead to the actual story and not bother with the details. Instead, he uses brevity as a powerful tool – in just a few words, short phrases, sometimes not even complete sentences, he is able to bring to life not only his characters and the situations they encounter, but also draw the reader into their world to experience it for ourselves. As I was reading, I actually felt like I was being transported back to that time period (mid 1930s to 1940s), walking alongside the characters, seeing what they were seeing, feeling what they were feeling. The atrocities of war described in the book were very harsh and very real, despite this being a work of fiction. I actually winced during some of the parts where an atrocity was being described and had to set the book aside for a few minutes to calm myself. I’ve read other books in the past about his time period, about World War II and the atrocities of war, but none of those books had the impact this one did. Thinking about it now, I realize why: those books either use WWII merely as a backdrop without going into much detail or if they do, the events are portrayed in a way that makes it feel like a story or a recounting of history – as a reader, you are told what happened during that time period but don’t really feel a connection to it. This book, in its uniqueness, actually makes you LIVE that history rather than just read about it.
The other unique aspect to this book was the storyline involving the cursed stone, which brought an unexpected element of suspense that still blended in perfectly with the rest of the story. In the hands of a less capable author, incorporating this part of the story might ruin the book entirely, but with Doerr, this is definitely not the case – he is consistent with the details as well as the storytelling and incorporates this arc seamlessly throughout the book. I found myself at the edge of my seat at certain points wanting to find out what happens next -- whether the stone would be found, whether certain characters would get caught, etc. I enjoyed this part of the book immensely!
My only “complaint” about this book would be in its structure, as the story is told in different timeframes and switches back and forth after every couple chapters. This interrupted the flow a bit and did slow me down at times when reading, since I had to go back and re-read certain parts in order to remember where the previous timeframe left off. It also caused a little bit of confusion for me initially with some of the characters who were already part of the story when the book opens but then are introduced for the first time when things switch back to the earlier timeframe, then it picks up with what happens to that character from the later timeframe when it switches again. Not a show-stopper by any means of course, but I think the book would’ve been easier to get through if it didn’t switch back and forth. I'm pretty sure there was significance to structuring the book this way but unfortunately it was lost on me.
Despite this long review that I just wrote, I actually don’t feel like I did this book any justice. In fact, no review can do this book much justice because it is a book that can’t just be “described” -- you basically have to read and experience it for yourself. For me personally, I loved this book and I know this is a story that will stay with me for a long time to come. I can totally see why this book won a Pulitzer Prize – absolutely well-deserved!
(Read in January 2017)
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