magical: All the light we cannot see

This novel offers a brilliant life affirming reading experience. It is a magnificent feat of creativity inspired by research for the multiple award-winning author Anthony Doerr. It is such an intricate weave of 2 young lives in 1940's Europe; a resilient blind French girl and a smart German orphan, whose life paths move towards their fleeting meeting in occupied St Malo at the end of World War II. They are both so amazingly strong and adept at surviving through challenges most of us would never consider possible. Before the war, Marie-Laure lives with her widowed father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master lock smith. She is blinded at six and her father whittles a wooden miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. At twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and she flees with her father to the walled Saint-Malo, to the sanctuary of her reclusive great-uncle. They carry with them what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous diamond; even they do not know if it is real or one of the 3 fakes created to deter the Germans. At the same time, in a northern German mining town, Werner grows up with his younger sister in an isolated orphanage. He seeks escape through his fascination with and skills in repairing radios. While he is excited to earn a place at an elite training academy, his sister has premonitions of its futility. As he tracks the resistance, Werner realises the human cost of his intelligence. The sensitivity of the meeting between Werner and Marie-Laure at the final stages of the war is truly tragically romantic. And in the final few chapters, it is wonderful to read forward to current times and realise the intergenerational beauty of such an amazing connection. There can be goodwill created in the most dire of circumstances.