Mini Review: All the Light We Cannot See

A short-and-sweet summary of one of my favorite novels this year, All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr.

“…what pretensions humans have! Why bother to make music when the silence and Wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them?” Young Werner wonders this while staring at the beautiful buildings in Vienna, at risk of destruction during World War II. (p. 365) He searches throughout the book for the answer to this question.

All the Light We Cannot See tells the parallel stories of a young German boy with a gift for understanding radio and a young French girl who sees the world with her fingers. This novel tells the story of WWII in an intensely personal, beautiful flow, and it draws the reader to ask questions about the meaning of life and the strength of human hope. It’s long—530 pages in the hardcover edition I read—but so well written that each page is a pleasure to read and then reflect upon. 

This book is a well-deserved recipient of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Note: Contains some bad language. 

Another of my favorite novels of 2022: The Lincoln Highway. Read my mini review of it here.