All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Highly recommend! You won't forget this book for a long time. This is the literary version of a modern Rembrandt. His style is poetic yet sparse; the tension keeps you turning the pages even while he lingers on characters, even minor ones. Some of the tension lies in the character building, which is just so brilliant. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book!
I had never read anything by Doerr but now I want to read everything. This book really stimulated my desire to read more about WWII. I thought I'd read lots, but maybe not enough. Can there ever be enough understanding about the Holocaust? No wonder so many people write about it--it's an unending source of anguish and heartache, and no matter how much you read you can never really fathom that something like that could happen even though you read and read and try and try.
The two viewpoints of this book: blind girl and young German orphan boy were absolutely fascinating. I love unique perspectives on the same story. And I loved the idea of a mystical stone that one of Hitler's men is obsessed with--it added an "Indiana Jones" flair and just a touch of fantasy without losing the integrity and importance of the story. I hadn't read anything about the Nazis' collection of riches, besides seeing the movie The Monuments Men (which I didn't care for, despite loving the leading actors), but that was probably quite an important element of WWII: Nazis collecting the treasures of Europe. In the end, doesn't greed fuel half of everything horrible in the world?
A+. No doubt, a must read.
(When finished, read Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel's book about his experience in a concentration camp: Night--shockingly honest yet elegant.)
