It would be easy, with a novel written about World War II, to cheaply illicit an emotional reaction. Anthony Doerr manages to stay away from this. All the Light We Cannot See is complex and human; its melancholy is tangible and leaves an echo long after the last page. This, I think, is part of his point -- great tragedy is inescapable, it becomes the silent thrumming thread that flows through your life, buried, perhaps, but never wholly gone. This is a beautiful novel, never veering to what is easy but instead choosing to tackle the difficult and uncertain. Of all its 530 pages, not a single one of them seemed wasted or unnecessary.