This book is truly exceptional. Whether you like it or not (although the majority tends to the first option), this is one thing you have to admit: that Anthony Doerr achieved something he can be proud of with his novel. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2015. Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2015. Goodreads Choice Winner 2014. Nearly 300,000 ratings on Goodreads - only 280,000 when I finished it three weeks ago. Tendency increasing rapidly. You get the picture: this book is an absolute success with readers. 
 First off, the cover is gorgeous. I could spend hours just staring at it and admiring the impressive colors. 
 And yes, I know that it's basically just a picture of a town with blue color screen spread about it. But I don't care. It's beautiful the way it is. 
 "All the Light We Cannot See" is set alternately in France and Germany of the Second World War, beginning to narrate the story in 1934 and spanning several decades until the plot is finally concluded in 2014. Jumping back and forth between the two main characters and some of the supporting characters, it is never quite possible to get into a protagonist's mind, as we have to leave his thoughts after only two or three pages. Does that reduce the novel's qualities? No, it certainly doesn't. But it was a flaw which left a bitter taste in my mouth, as I struggled to connect to any of the characters through about 70% of the book. 
 The plot is wonderful. A little mystery embedded in a tale of war, destruction, ambitions, struggling with life and death - and special family bonds between a daughter and her father as well as a boy growing up to a young man and his sister. This story is no cheerful one. The narrative tone is dark and depressing, which is compensated by beautiful descriptions and the author's stunning way with words. 
 "I have been feeling very clearheaded lately and what I want to write about today is the sea. It contains so many colors. Silver at dawn, green at noon, dark blue in the evening. Sometimes it looks almost red. Or it will turn the color of old coins. Right now the shadows of clouds are dragging across it, and patches of sunlight are touching down everywhere. White strings of gulls drag over it like beads. 
 It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel." 
 His descriptions of the setting might be looked upon as drawn-out, but they certainly help with establishing a certain atmosphere, an embrazing feeling which makes the reader feel like he returns home everytime he is able to enter the city of Saint-Malo again. This book is all about atmosphere and characters - without abandoning certain plot elements. You can feel the depressing and angst-ridden circumstances of war with every word which flows out of Anthony Doerr's narrative. And you can't help but feel like Doerr has dragged you deep into the story of the Second World War. 
 "It's embarrassingly plain how inadequate language is." 
 The main protagonists are Werner and Marie, introduced at the age of unexperienced children. Werner Pfennig is a German orphan living in a Children's Home with his sister Jutta, and what struck me hardest was the way the author made us feel that we all could have been this sad boy, had we only been born about 85, 90 years ago. (A feeling which was even intensified by the fact that the town Werner and Jutta lived in is only two driving hours distant from where I am living today.) Werner is no typical boy, but he is a human being with longings and passions and feelings. A young boy who would like to spend the entirety of his days with his passion for science. When we, especially those of us who have never experienced war ourselves, speak or think of war, it is easy to dismiss that all the people who died in these wars - and are still dying in wars - were human beings, breathing the same air as we do, thinking similar thoughts as we do. We all could have been Werner Pfennig. A young man marked by the course of war. 
 Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a girl who lost her eyesight at the age of six. However, her brave soul hinders her from surrendering to this blow of fate. She finds solace in reading books with embossed printing, in experiencing the adventures from Jules Verne's pen, in fleeing into her own fictional world. She and her father have to escape Paris as a result of the invasion in 1940, and they find shelter in Saint-Malo, a town destined to become a fateful place - for Marie and Werner alike. 
 I will be honest, I was disappointed in the way the story was concluded in the ending. After pages and pages of setting up the story and leading Marie and Werner closer and closer to each other, the ending was too rushed and should have been home to ... more. I'm not disappointed in the (comparative) lack of action, but I missed depth during the confrontation between Marie and Werner. However, this didn't keep me from relating to Marie in a way only few fictional characters ever made me feel attached to them. This book made me think so much about how blindness could affect a human being's life, and in the same time, Marie's bravery, her courage, combined with her childish innocence made this book so outstanding. 
 It wasn't the plot which made me love the book in spite of its flaws. It was the atmosphere. The details. The writing. The characters. Finally, I succumbed to the charm of Doerr's writing, allowing myself to be enthralled by the words and the story in spite of struggling so long to get into the story. After having read this book, I can understand why it is loved so much. I can also whole-heartedly recommend it. And I hope you, who might have actually read this entire review and made it up to this last sentence, will not hesitate to read this book. 
 Seriously. Read it. 
 And if you still are not convinced, then please read some of the other reviews on this book. There is definitely no lack of those, as you may realize when scrolling through the book's Goodreads page.