All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Release Date: May 6, 2014
Pages: 531
Rating:💜💜💜💜💜
Buy it: Amazon | Book Depository
For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. The miniature of a Paris neighbourhood, made by her father to teach her the way home. The microscopic layers within the invaluable diamond that her father guards in the Museum of Natural History. The city by the sea, where she takes refuge from the Nazis, drawing her ever closer to Werner, a German orphan, destined to labour in the mines until a broken radio fills his life with possibility and brings him to the notice of the Hitler Youth.

I remember when this book was getting all the hype and I thought 'I am never going to read this book'. I had no interest in reading this book, I though I wouldn't enjoy it and I was convinced that it wasn't going to be that great.

It wasn't until I had to make up an excuse for who I wasn't writing my history coursework in the lessons set aside for the specific purpose of writing my history coursework (I know, I'm a good student) that I decided to read this book. Considering I was writing my history coursework on World War Two I somehow managed to convince my teacher that me reading a book about WW2 was me doing work. I think he just liked the fact that I got all my work done the night of getting given it. Whatever his reason was it gave me the chance to read this book, and boy was it one heck of a ride.

I'd started reading this book before but never got into the story (mainly because I hated any book that wasn't standard text, but hey ho). But this time something had clearly change because I was addicted to the story and couldn't put the book done. I could only read it in snatches of time that grabbed throughout my school days but I lived for these moments, desperately wanting to find out what happened next.

All of the characters in this book were so incredibly complicated, with each chapter revealing a new layer to their story. There was the blind girl who could see with her fingers, the Nazi boy who loved to invent, his little sister who hated him for being a Nazi, and the eccentric uncle who loved his family with all his heart. Even these little descriptions of the characters aren't enough; the characters you see at the start of this book aren't the ones you are left with at the end because Anthony Doerr really knows how to develop a character.

I loved the grime of this story; the fact that society felt tainted by the war, that you could see the devastation within each chapter. So many YA war novels miss out the fact that everyone was affected by the war, and not just because of the loss of lives. Throughout the novel we see relationships fall apart, new ones build up and see how families change and evolve due to the strain of the war. The realistic nature of this story was similar to that of The Book Thief, proving that no one is truly safe from the nature of the war.

This book is the kind of book where you have to sit down and think about it, rather than just rushing from this book to another one. The beauty of the prose, the nature of the character's relationships, and the deep historical connections gave this book a place in my heart that it will keep for years to come.