All the Light We cannot See.

I first read All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Deorr back in 2019. And in all honesty, as a teenager, I had only bought the book for the aesthetic appeal on booktok: the way it looked and the fact that it was among the books that were in the talk.
I opened the pages, hoping (ideky) to dive into a romance that would make my heart flutter and guve me the giggles that books at teenage are supposed to. But the very first page crashed me with the reality of how wrong I was. Don’t get me wrong, it did make my heart flutter, But in a different way all together.
The historical fiction, situated in the second world war context, follows the story of the two central characters: Marie-Laure, a french girl who is blind and Werner Pfennig, a german orphan with exceptional talent for technology, specifically radio.
Marie’s miniature city and Werner’s life in the orphanage alongside his sister Jutta, overtakes their journeys and the reader’s imagination. As Werner grows into a german soldier and enters the french lands, alongside the army, their paths cross.
The novel explores multiple themes of survival, love, morality and most importantly the destructive nature that war has. As this war between the imaginary boundaries overtakes the lifes of common people, the faultless get slaughtered and the hopeful lose all hope, and yet somehow from within the mud and dirt, Doerr shows how a bud can still grow. As destiny plays its part, people who have lived acres apart, in worlds that are distanced by thoughts, culture, language and context, lives come together in the most unexpected way. And while a tragedy may unfold due to this slight passing of the two impossible parallels, you find a reason and a way to keep going because and by the strength offered by this very passing m, this very moment.
I remember keeping the book down and crying myself to sleep that night and as I did, I dreamed of Werner and Marie and thousands of untold stories of the same period that were normal and were forced to be a “story” because lf the turns that the war had added to them. And yet, somehow these “stories” nevrr made it out of the characters that led these stories. Not because they did not want to, but because they never had the chouce to be able to share them.
I love Doerr for whatever this story killed within me and I love Doerr for whatever this story birthed within me.