Werner and his younger sister, Jutta, are raised at Children’s House, an orphanage. We then meet Werner who grows up three hundred miles northeast of Paris in a place called Zollverein, outside of Essen, Germany. This is where we learn about the stone called the Sea of Flames, which comes with a curse: the keeper of the stone would live forever, but so long as he kept it, misfortunes would fall on all those he loved one after another.

It then jumps back to 1934 when Marie-Laure’s father sends her on a children’s tour of the museum where he works. And Werner is also in Saint-Malo held up in the Hotel of Bees as the bombing begins. Marie-Laure is alone at her home clutching a stone the size of a pigeon’s egg. 7, 1944 in Saint-Malo when American shelling and bombing as well as British naval gunfire arrive to defeat the Germans that were left in the town. Let me explain, there’s two storylines happening that will eventually connect. Nonlinear plotĪn interesting style choice by the author was to present the story in a nonlinear (out of chronological order) style in a sense. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. For more about the synopsis, check out my preview here. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. When she 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.

It alternates between multiple perspectives but mainly we read it from their point of views. Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. The story is about a blind French girl (Marie-Laure) and a German boy (Werner) whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. All the Light We Cannot See might be the definition of a slow burn read but it’s so worth it as everything comes together in the end. And usually, when stories are that long, it will be a slow burn. Especially with a story that sits at 530 pages, you have to go in ready for a big story. When it comes to big and epic stories, you can’t just pick it up on a whim.

While I knew someday I would read it, I wanted to read it at the right time. I remember when All the Light We Cannot See was published, it made all of the top reads of 2014 lists, including a big endorsement from President Obama.

All the light we cannot see book review