All the Light We Cannot See

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2015

Ratings and Reviews from the Librarians

Lorna rated it ★★★★★ and said, “Yes. Finally. I’ve been waiting for a book like this. Everything was so good – the writing, characters, the story, the sense of time and place – it was all good. The author’s approach is both scientific yet poetic. The book moves at the pace of a thriller yet I wanted to take my time reading it because each paragraph is so beautiful.”

Bekka rated it ★★★★★ and said, “This really was a good book, and one that stays with you after you’ve read it. It is a bit slow, in spite of the very short chapters, but its a very lyrical kind of slowness that allows you a chance to really get to know the characters and their world. All the characters were very well drawn, with no stereotypes to be found – not an easy thing to do when writing about the Nazis. This does have some definite teen cross-over appeal, since the two main characters are both older teens, but there are some harsh moments and some real heartbreaks. Its hard to even try and describe the writing style, which is literary without being difficult to read. Again, “lyrical” is the word that seems to fit, even when the author is telling us about some horrible things. The going back and forth between the characters and in time was very well done and not at all confusing. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and Highly Recommend it. And, hey, he’s an Idaho author!”

Cathy rated it ★★★★★ and said, “Lyrical, gripping, haunting, and absolutely, stunningly beautiful.”