Here's the thing with this book: I enjoyed it. The characters are very well-developed. I love a good interwoven "how are these going to connect" storyline. But by the end, I was ready for this to be over. Why? 
 I don't think I can blame it on the overplayed WWII setting. Because I enjoy a good WWII story, too, especially one that includes the gritty details of Nazism and the Hitler Youth. Those chapters about Werner's recruitment and the eye/hair charts? The measuring of every aspect of the human body in search of the elite? They're beautiful, in that unsettling kind of way. 
 At the same time, this story didn't have to be a WWII story. This could have been told anywhere--an orphan boy and a blind girl, living their difficult lives, who are ultimately intertwined. That's what kept me going. Not the war, and not the subplot about a haunted jewel. 
 Maybe that's it. I cared about the characters. I cared about Etienne, and Volkheimer, and Frederick. I read along with Marie-Laure's braille books. I developed Werner's fascination with building and repairing radios. This is a character-driven story that took too much time away from the things that mattered.