All the Light We Cannot See

By Anthony Doerr  

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr has been widely heralded as one of the best novels in the last year or so.  It has received wide acclaim and attention.  It is the story of a young girl, Marie-Laure, who goes blind when she is six.  She lives with her father in Paris.  Her father is a master locksmith at the Museum of Natural History in Paris.

In a coal mining town in Germany there is a young orphan boy by the name of Werner, who grows up in a small orphanage with his younger sister.  He is extremely intelligent and constructs a crude radio.  When World War II breaks out, both of their lives are changed forever, Werner becoming part of the Hitler Youth and Marie-Laure fleeing with her father to a reclusive town on the French coast, Saint-Malo.  The book goes back and forth between the two characters until they finally meet near the end of the book.  Doerr is a master writer and the novel is superb