It has been weeks since completing "All The Light We Cannot See", and I have since read and finished three other books. In spite of my shameful tardiness in writing about what I am "currently" reading, I couldn't help stepping back in time to tell you all about this novel. USA TODAY notes that Anthony Doerr's novel "Proves its worth page after lyrical page ... Each and every person in this finely spun assembling is distinct and true." Among many other soaring reviews and comments on the lyric perfection of this novel, this review is precisely how I felt while reading through the pages of such a magnificent story. Set in the early and later days of the second world war, in France and Germany, the story follows a blind girl, Marie-Laure, through the constant unfortunate events that begin first with the loss of her sight, then the escape from Paris into the walled coastal town of Saint-Malo where her life goes on with one loss after another until the fanatical finale blows the reader completely out of the water. An complimentary storyline follows an orphan boy in Germany, Werner Pfennig, who finds himself recruited into Hitler's Youth army. Werner grows up learning how to fight for the Fuhrer at all costs. As the war progresses, becomes more hostile, and intense, and other lives and worlds connect, so do Marie-Laure and Werners' lives grow and change until they are intertwined in a way that will change both of them forever. Those of us who struggle with writing good poetry, and decent short stories, and even the daunting novel, can't help but be awed by the placement and connection of each word in this novel. Every phrase, scene, and section seems to have been crafted masterfully and without err. It took Doerr ten years to complete "All The Light We Cannot See", and it is an absolute masterpiece. The novel's win of the Pulitzer Prize, and praise from readers, editors, and critics, are completely justified and deserved; for a novel as beautiful and poetically written as this one is a rarity and should be revered in our highest respects.
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