[July Trim] All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

[Charlotte]

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
3 stars

I went back and forth in which discussion to put this because although it was set during WWII, it was published in 2014 and meets the broad definition of the 21st Century tag.

I struggled through a good portion of this book and I have no clue why. The story follows different people and flashes back and forth with the apex all being around a particular point in time near the end of WWII in Saint Malo in France. It follows the characters on how they get to that particular point, what happens when their lives intersect, and follows them after. I enjoyed that aspect of the writing. I love finding out what happens to all characters, even the smaller ones. I think it was something else about the writing that kept allowing me to put the book down or play a game on my phone instead of reading. I struggled to have it hold my interest the whole time, hence the 3 stars.

Overall, I enjoyed the whole story. There were a couple of story lines that made me uncomfortable but I sometimes enjoy when books do that. I'm glad that it came up on my trim and I finally read it.

[Karin]

I LOVED this book, but listened to it on audiobook. I have always thought that the audiobook improved it for me, but I have no idea how much. Even though I know we aren't all going to love the same novels, for some I get a silly feeling of sadness when someone else doesn't enjoy it as much as I did.. The irony of this is that I frequently am the one who doesn't love popular books as much as a number of others do.

However, I did like the style of writing on this one, as well as the story lines.

[Charlotte]

Karin wrote: "I LOVED this book, but listened to it on audiobook. I have always thought that the audiobook improved it for me, but I have no idea how much. Even though I know we aren't all going to love the same..."

I wonder if audio would have made it better for me. It's so weird. I enjoyed it overall. I loved the stories for Marie-Laure, especially when her Uncle came into the picture, and of Werner and I enjoyed the book overall but I never got "captured" by the book. I could always easily put it down. It was so disappointing because I wanted to love it and I wanted to get swept away by it but it just didn't happen.