"All The Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

Hi there lovelies!

I got this book for my birthday and finally got around to reading it :)

Summary:
This story is about Marie-Laure, a blind girl living with her father in Paris and Werner, a young boy who loves radios and technology and is sent to a German school for the Hitler Youth. Their stories start of separate but because of the war, they somehow intertwine. 

Facts:

Published on May 6th in 2014

531 Pages

>> Take a look on Goodreads <<

My Opinion:

My preferred genre is YA fantasy or contemporary - you may notice this book is neither of those. I did want to broaden my reading-horizon a little and so this book went on my TBR. For my birthday in December I then got this book from a lovely friend. And now I finally decided to pick it up - I do not regret it.

For me as a German, I feel like I may perceive some parts of this book differently than others simply because of the German history that this book is about. In school I have learned a lot about World War II and how we need to avoid that ever happening again. This book depicted again those things that I learned and that were real. I even went on a study field trip to Auschwitz, the biggest concentration camp, so I do have some experience with the German history.

But let's get to the story itself. It took me about 150 pages to really get into because the chapters are short and the perspective changes with every chapter. Therefore it took quite some time to really get to know Marie-Laure and Werner - partially, because Werner somehow stays distanced to the reader throughout the whole book. Marie-Laure, on the other hand, is so lovely and I grew to really like her. Werner, I'm indifferent to. And maybe that is the point - to not sympathize with the German boy because he is on the bad side of war. 

I loved how there was a slight air of fantasy to it because of the legend of the 'Sea of Flames', a diamond that is supposedly haunted: it's owner is to live forever while the people they love die tragically. This little diamond plays quite a big role in the happenings of this story, if I think more closely about it...

What I also like is that this book is still on my mind, there are still things I think about. Even while not reading it my mind kept going back to the book, wondering what was going to happen or how those kids would have turned out if everything had been different. It just was constantly on my mind somehow and I think if a book can do that, it's definitely worth reading.

The writing was eerie and somehow haunting. There were sentences and phrases that shocked me even though I knew what was said was completely real.

All in all I give it a solid 7 out of 10 hearts.

-xoxo Lisa