September: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

[Emma]

Welcome to the discussion board for our September standalone :)

[AmbWitch]

I enjoyed this more than I expected. It wasn’t the sort of book that I usually would pick for myself but I am glad to have read it. The structure of the book seemed to both hinder and benefit the plot. It helped to build it up but at the same time it did drag on at times.

(view spoiler)[ There was a huge kick in the gut when Werner died. I had not been expecting it at all and thought he would survive the remainder of the book. He had already survived the war and illness, then he stood on a mine. There was no build up to this whatsoever. One moment he is walking around and the next, boom, gone. The suddenness of this created a bit of shock factor and I had to stop reading for a moment to digest it.

I did have a giggle to myself when the couple of Germans mentioned how history was written by the winners as the reader would know full well what the outcome of the war was going to be.

It was good to find an ending where not everything was resolved. We found out the fate of all the characters apart from Marie-Laurie’s father who disappeared and was never seen again. We can only speculate what happened to him and I always like to have a plot where not everything is resolved and some things are left to our own imaginations. (hide spoiler)]