“All the Light We Cannot See” — Anthony Doerr

It has been a while since I was unable to put down the book in my hands. Though I average a book a week, 531 pages in under 3 (working) days should be a testament to the wonders of this novel.

Though books of a certain size can be daunting for some, “All the Light We Cannot See” manages to keep the reader at a sprinter’s pace during its marathon of pages. The novel bounces between three major storylines with the large majority between 1940 and 1944 in France and Germany during World War II, never sticking to one for more than a few pages. But instead of being thrown by the rapid shifts you are somehow pulled deeper into the narrative as the lives of characters become more delicately intertwined usually unbeknownst to them. You follow the lives of Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl, Werner Pfennig, an orphaned German boy and Major von Rumpel, an expert gemologist — all the while holding your breath hoping for happy endings regardless of the savageness of the wartime setting.

Love, loss, lore and legend — Doerr is able to elegantly evoke so much and so vividly that there are times you could almost feel the breeze in your hair or hear the bombs crashing around you. Page after page you are rapt with suspense of what’s to come in such uncertain times. Longing for good news and happy endings but deep down knowing that hope is likely only holding you together just long enough for reality to catch up and painfully rip you apart.

Doerr is able to expertly weave a heartbreakingly beautiful and suspenseful narrative that is bound to leave a lasting impression on all who read it. I can only send my condolences to the next book I read for it will be nearly impossible to shake the hold this book had me.

5/5 — One of the best books I’ve read in a long time. The beautifully woven and suspenseful story will keep the pages turning quickly from start to finish.