book review: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The backstory: All the Light We Cannot See won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize , was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award , was named one of the top five books of 2014 by The New York Times , and won the 2015 Carnegie Medal . Update: It was also the 2015 runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize . The basics: Set during World War II, All the Light We Cannot See tells the interwoven stories of Marie-Laure, a young Parisian girl going blind whose father works at the Museum of Natural History, and Werner, a young German teenager growing up in an orphanage, where he develops a fascination with radios. My thoughts: Over the years, I've grown weary of World War II tales. I find it a fascinating time in history, but I've read so many great novels about the time and so many good novels about the time that most new WWII novels have a hard time sticking out. Admittedly, if I read this one several years ago, I might have enjoyed it even more than I did. What makes All the ...