2015 Reading Challenge [Closed] discussion
. Week 4: Published This Year
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All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
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Caleb
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Dec 31, 2014 06:28PM
I keep seeing reviews about this book saying it's one of the best books of the year.
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What a beautiful book. I will not forget these characters for some time. The jumping from scene to scene was done so perfectly that it did not bother me at all. Especially liked the short chapters that kept the book moving at a rapid pace.
Im a little behind, just startung Week 4 now, but I think Im going to reas this, too. (Please pardon lack of punctuation. A Nook has no autocorrect, apparently!)
I am 150 pages into this and it's wonderful. It's some of the most beautiful prose I've ever read, and I absolutely love Marie-Laure and Papa. For me, this novel is reminiscent of Zusak's "The Book Thief" ... Both in style and storyline, and also in how much I am enjoying the story. I'm eager to see how Werner's story plays out and how he and Marie's paths will cross.
Just finished this....SPOILERS HERE.... DONT READ IF YOU HAVENT FINISHED!
I love this book almost as much as The Book Thief, as it really encompasses what the power of writing really is all about. The broadcasts Marie's grandfather sent out to a young Warner and Jutta come full circle to Etienne's broadcasts during the war, and then finally Marie's desire to read Jules Verne to whomever may be listening as the bombs fall. I fell in love with these characters and their desire to keep moving on in the face of the war and its horrors. At times, I thought it was a bit too fluffy, and I wanted more plot but overall, the prose is beautiful and the story is captivating.
As the characters fell, one by one, I just wanted so much for there to be a resolution that said it wasn't true. I wanted Papa to come back, for Frederick to regain his mental capacity, for Werner to be in a hospital somewhere missing a foot, but clinging to the wooden house. I wanted Madam Murec to live. I suppose there is resolution in Jutta's marriage to a good man and her motherhood. Marie is a grandmother by the end of the novel, but she is still never truly happy. I wanted Marie and Warner to have more time together. I wanted Max to find the stone. But the novel ends like so many things in life: unfinished.
Nonetheless, it's a fabulous story which I highly recommend.
This is one of my "catchup" books, as I started this challenge late... and it's a bit longer that many of the other books I'm reading for this challenge so I put it off even though I've already completed weeks 1-3 and 5-7.Anyway, I started it two days ago and am about a quarter of the way through so far. I'm enjoying it, though it hasn't fully sucked me in as a "favorite" yet... but lots more of this book for that to happen!
I find it interesting that each "chapter" is so short. I'm reading on a kindle so it's hard to tell exactly, but most feel like they are only a page or two long, with a few maybe up to four pages, alternating between Werner and Marie-Laure each time. I think this is the fastest I've ever seen this type of switching happen in an adult book.
I ended up really loving this one! Here's my final review:What a lovely novel! Everyone has been telling me to read it for months, but the hold list was incredibly long at the library and I just didn't feel like spending the money to be quite honest. Plus the book itself is pretty long, so I knew it would slow down my reading rate on some of my other challenges. But I finally gave in and purchased the kindle edition, and I'm glad I did. It was just as lovely as everyone told me it was.
At the beginning, I wasn't so sure. It started pretty slow, and jumps back and forth between characters very quickly, changing perspective every few pages, so I never really could get to know the first character before it jumped to the next. I found this really frustrating initially, but later in the book it was nice because it gave a much better feel when things were happening at the same time. And as well as jumping back and forth between the two sets of main characters, it also switched time periods occasionally, which also threw me off until I learned to pay closer attention to the dates at the beginning of each section ... I'd initially assumed they were chronological, which didn't end up making sense to me.
I loved the way that the two stories came together. I was a little disappointed in the ending because I was hoping for a happy one. I do think the ending was fitting, though, so I was mollified somewhat. I had mixed feelings about the characters, but this worked in the book's favor also, since it made them seem more human. Even the "bad" characters I felt bad for and wanted to help them occasionally.
That's the sign of a good author.
A very lovely book. Definitely recommended.
