Why You Should Think About Adding All The Light We Cannot See To Your TBR

All The Light We Cannot See, written by Anthony Doerr, is a New York Times bestseller, a Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and is now a limited series on Netflix! The novel follows the lives of Marie-Laure Leblanc, a blind girl living in France, and Werner Pfennig, a young boy from Germany, during World War II. Readers get a glimpse into both of their worlds as they navigate the challenges they are met with in France and Germany during the war. 

Marie and her father live in France near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. They live there until she is 12 when Germany occupies France and she and her father have to flee to Saint-Malo, a walled citadel on France’s coast. This is where they meet Marie’s great-uncle and where Marie will stay for the remainder of the war. 

We first meet Werner in a mining town in Germany when he is still a young boy. He’s an orphan and lives with his younger sister in an orphanage where he becomes fascinated with an old radio they find. The radio allows them to learn things and travel to places they couldn’t even imagine. Werner develops his knowledge of the radio and becomes an expert. This catches the attention of nazi recruitment officers and he is enlisted by the Nazis for his gift. 

 It seems difficult to find something that could connect a blind French girl and a young Nazi from Germany, especially during World War II. But yet, Anthony Doerr found this connection in the form of radio. The radio was one of the only constants in Marie and Werner’s lives and this was what ultimately brought them together in the end. They were connected by the radio long before they had found out about each other; they had both listened to the same radio station when they were younger: an old Frenchman who spoke of science and optimism and finding light even when it feels as if you are surrounded by total and complete darkness. They wanted to learn, coupled with their need for light in such dark times that brought these two vastly different people together, long before they knew the other existed. 

The way Doerr weaves the radio in and out of the story helps readers remember that even though you are getting two completely different perspectives over a long period you are still reading one story. As soon as you forget that Marie listened to the Frenchman on the radio as a child, or that Werner searches for frequencies coming from the resistance, Doerr mentions it again and you are reminded of the fact that you aren’t just reading a book about two separate people. The radio being the one constant in their lives not only helps to move the plot forward but it helps readers remember they are still reading one collective story. 

I would like to applaud Doerr for being able to find a connection between two very contrasting characters whose personalities are not their only difference. Writing a book where the main characters are living completely different lives and don’t meet until the end of the book is a challenge. It’s hard to keep readers engaged, but I was personally engaged the entire time I was reading this book. I could not put it down. I was reading it on the bus, at lunch, and I was even finishing schoolwork early just so I could have an extra couple minutes with Marie and Werner. 

If you are interested in Historical Fiction, specifically set during World War II I would give this book a read. I would also recommend watching the Netflix series as well, but make sure you read the book first.