Book Review: All the Light We Cannot See
by Jessica Weems
Okay, so I did the thing you are never supposed to do.
I judged a book by its cover, fell in love with the title, and bought the first book I saw in Barnes & Noble. Sue me.
To start, “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr takes the word “spectacular” and shoves it in time-out for not being good enough. It had me from the cover, but by the end, I wanted nothing more than to sit in a rocking chair and grow old with it.
The novel takes place in France and Germany during the early years of World War II and follows through to liberation. Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris. She is a girl, wise beyond her years, and eager to learn something new each day. Marie also happens to be blind. Her father has gone to great lengths to reject this as her defining feature, however, allowing her to remain brilliantly curious. He refuses to permit her lack of vision to limit the light in her life. 
In Germany, we find Werner, a very blonde, very small, boy living in an orphanage with his younger sister, Jutta. Together they fill the crowded home with the music from a once-broken radio that Werner was able to mend. He questions how things work, why things exist, and is committed to seeking out his answers. When he is later sent to the prestigious school for the Hitler Youth, due to his infatuation and talents with the sciences, he learns that answers sometimes come with consequence.
All the Light We Cannot See creates a world in which everyone yearns for the unreachable. For someone, for something, for closure, for peace. Where greed and overwhelming generosity merge and where the line between doing what’s right and doing what’s necessary becomes horribly mangled. Things can change in the blink of an eye or in a lifetime. Both Marie-Laure and young Werner discover this on their incredible journey towards each other.
Doerr perfectly combines the miraculous will of humanity with the tragedy of war, and there were times when the words pieced together so beautifully that I had to close the book in awe. So as “spectacular” sits in the corner, I wonder why they say to never judge a book by its cover. Doing so led to something inspiring, something life-changing.
Links of the Week
Check out this wonderful piece over at Michael Noll’s Read to Write Stories featuring Jennifer Ziegler as he talks about creating a villain in works of fiction.
Also worth reading: this piece by author Bret Anthony Johnston, entitled What the World Looks Like to a Hammer, which is a great piece written about point of view.
The Huffington Post also posted a very interesting article covering the controversy of Amazon tightening its hold on publishing books by Hachette. Check out the article here.
Lyn Miller Lachmann wrote a very interesting post for her blog this week, covering the #WeNeedDiverseBooks panel at Book Con. You can view that post here, and see what all of the buzz is about.
Check out next week’s Book Buzz to see what Links are trending in the writing world.