All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See: ohhhh.....it's beautiful. Set in Germany and France during World War II, this is a book with substance, heart, and no easy answers. The characters are complicated, fully rendered human beings, whom I rooted for even when young Werner was loosing his soul, and young Marie-Laure seemed trapped in her blindness. The novel slides and slips through time and place--I'd be interested to hear from people who have read it if they found it confusing at all--in a way I found beautiful and right for the story. Memory plays such a bog role in this novel that it made sense to me that time is not fixed. Last night, a friend asked me if I thought Doerr used too many descriptions. Maybe in the technical sense he could have cut back. But the effect of piles and piles of descriptions is a world I could see, touch, smell, hear. It felt full, even cluttered at times, but I think that was the point. I love the shifting points of view, and the non-linear timeline, and the questions of morality and goodness this book raises. The only thing I didn't love was that it ended. For the first time in a very long time, I feel like I cold have kept right on living with these characters for another two hundred pages (maybe even more). Read this book. It isn't over-hyped. It's wonderful.