Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Als je het licht niet kunt zien

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Als je het licht niet kunt zien by Anthony Doerr

45 reviews

zoejjj's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I don’t know how to sum up this book other than it’s a perspective of the war that we don’t always see but that doesn’t make it less painful. There wasn’t a single person who lived in Europe at that time that didn’t experience pain but this book isn’t just trauma porn. It’s introspective and reflective and kind. There’s the joy of rebelling and simple pleasures even when the world is falling apart and you’re starving. That being said I did cry at multiple points during this book.

uhm, Werner dying via passive suicide ideation was so painful that I had to take a break for like a week. It makes sense, but it also makes me so insanely angry. I hate that that’s how he went out. Every scene with Fredrick after he was beaten made me cry. His final scene where he kind of recognizes that owl but it doesn’t actually mean he’s better messed me up. AND WERNER THROWING “five Eiffel Towers” INTO THE OCEAN BECAUSE AT HIS CORE HE WAS DECENT took me out. Ugh. Finally, I listened to this as an audiobook and at the end, Claire de lune played and I cried like a baby

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staceyinthesticks's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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venice_the_vampire's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

such a compelling story, i couldn’t put it down

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belleden's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The

pointless rape chapter

is why I don’t read books written by men. 🙄 If you want to win a Pulitzer Prize, all you have to do is be a man and write a book about WWII, apparently.

I strongly disliked the way the framing device of a shifting timeline was used. The dates were sometimes clearly labeled, but often not, and I had to go back and reread several times to understand where we were in the story. I even felt that the opening chapters of the book were a spoiler and I think it would have worked much better chronologically.
Marie-Laure and her family were extremely lovable and the main reason why I kept reading. Marie-Laure felt so real and I had a deep desire to protect her the entire time I was reading. The Sea of Flames storyline was fascinating and kept me wondering until the end.
I appreciate how this book handles trauma and the realities of war.

Not everyone gets a happy ending. Sometimes bad things happen to good people

and I think historical fiction that ignores that fact is completely unrealistic.
This book was recommended for me for the Red TV prompt of the Taylor Swift reading challenge - "a book over 450 pages that will break your heart".

Frederick and his mother

well and truly broke my heart.

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erebus53's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Another book club read, and I'm glad I was put onto this one, as I otherwise wouldn't have bothered with it. This is a beautifully woven tale of .. uhm, nerds in World War II.

Werner is a snow-haired German lad who was orphanned by the mines of the Reich. As a curious child he develops himself into an electrical engineer who specializes in fixing radios, and is noticed by a German general who forwards him for advancement in an elite military school.
Marie-Laure is the daughter of keymaster of the French museum. She develops cataracts and goes blind as a child, and her father crates a scale model of her neighbourhood as a tactile map for her to learn her way around.
When the war starts, Marie-Laure and her father flee to her uncle's house, and Werner is a radio engineer for Hitler's army.

This story is told with deep emotional resonance, and using all sorts of literary quirks that focus on themes of light and darkness, sounds, sensation, fear and bravery, morality, logic and puzzles, knowing and learning, art and music, the love of nature, and of people. I love the descriptions of things like disappearing in fog– that it's about vanishing into whiteness rather than shadows. The descriptions are visceral and evocative as well as clever.

This is a story of survival, of war, of fear and bloodshed, and it doesn't pull its punches. It certainly answers, in a humane way, questions about how people can do inhuman things in war, and the toll it can take on families.

I found the going slow, and occasionally tense, but also full of whimsy and beauty in contrast.
Well worth the read.

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