From the Bookshelf of EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club…

All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr

Start date: November 1, 2020

Finish date: November 30, 2020

Discussion: MODERN / POPULAR READS

Why we're reading this: Group pick for Nov 2020 - Bookshelf Catchup
Group Pick for May '18 - Bookshelf Reread
Group Pick for July '…more
[close] Group pick for Nov 2020 - Bookshelf Catchup
Group Pick for May '18 - Bookshelf Reread
Group Pick for July '17 - Modern Classic/Popular Read

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MODERN / POPULAR READS

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What Members Thought

Sep 13, 2014 Sunflower rated it really liked it

Shelves: e-books, fiction-read-2014

At first I thought that this was going to be a YA book, having been introduced to a German boy and a blind French girl as the two main characters. It wasn't very long after I found myself half way through the book and thought how wrong I was, and how engaging both the characters, the writing and the unfolding of the story had become. Set in WW2, at a time when the lives of everyone were thrown into disarray, these two young people go their seperate ways, survive and follow their interests while ...more

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Jul 07, 2017 Jen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: five-star-reads

I'm not sure how to review this book. It was so good! What is it about? Hard to say. Growing up in war time and the hardships on both sides of the fight? Realizing your potential? A mysterious jewel? Radio and communication and how we're connected? Love? Purpose? Hope? Just all of these things. The characters are amazingly well developed and the relationships between all of them are complicated, deep and true. And the plot is an intricate and delicate web that is such an experience to pull apart ...more

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Feb 20, 2015 Amanda rated it really liked it

This book deserves all the acclaim and praise it got last year. It's abeautifully written story that has stayed around in my mind even after I have started a new book. It's set in France and Germany during WWII and in alternating chapters tells the story of a German boy who is an electronic genius, and a blind French girl who, along with her locksmith, model maker is also exceptional. Both stories are equally riveting and will inevitably intersect. The chapters are very short, sometimes less tha ...more

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Apr 11, 2017 Laurel Bradshaw rated it really liked it

Shelves: daytimers-book-club, france, historical-fiction, world-war-ii, literary-fiction, nrgm-selections, chunky-450

Review may contain spoilers........

I liked this book a lot, but I didn't LOVE it. Definitely literary fiction - characterized by the writing rather than plot or characters. Lots of rich, beautiful, detailed descriptions about anything and everything. Plotwise, it constantly moves back and forth in time and point of view which may be distracting/discouraging for some readers. I didn't have a problem with that, although occasionally I would find myself wondering "who is this character again?" It b Review may contain spoilers........

I liked this book a lot, but I didn't LOVE it. Definitely literary fiction - characterized by the writing rather than plot or characters. Lots of rich, beautiful, detailed descriptions about anything and everything. Plotwise, it constantly moves back and forth in time and point of view which may be distracting/discouraging for some readers. I didn't have a problem with that, although occasionally I would find myself wondering "who is this character again?" It builds up to being (or could have been) a great love story, but when the two main characters finally meet, it is late in the tale and all too brief. So that was something of a let-down for me. Also, the plot device of the valuable diamond - the story of the curse never really went anywhere. The diamond was just another "character" to be followed through the story. You could almost think of this book as a collection of short stories. Some of the characters were revisited at the end so you knew what happened to them. Others were dropped and never reappeared, or their appearance in the first place was just part of the description, but not really relevant to the plot. So bottom line - beautiful writing, lots of gaps in the plot, and an ending that made you wonder what the point was of all that the characters went through.

Book description: Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.
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Apr 04, 2015 Amy Ellis rated it really liked it

Wow. Okay, this book is a huge emotional and time investment, but it is worth it for the author's writing. It is written so beautifully, and I love the short, powerful chapters. It's not a five-star book for me, only because it is pretty heartbreaking and some subject matter is gruesome. Also, this is the second book I have read this year that talks about the French occupation in Germany (The Girl You Left Behind). This is the type of book that sits heavily with you after you finish it. The auth ...more

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