This was a beautiful and haunting book. Anthony Doerr crafted a world that was somehow both light and dark and brought World War II France and Germany to life. The way Doerr writes is beautiful but also dense at times, as such it took me a while to get into the book and even longer to read through it, mostly because I didn't want to miss any details. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and I can see why it has received so much hype.