A review by johannafrth
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

the story is tragic and heavy and that's exactly the way it felt reading the book. uneasy, oppressing, frightening. the atmosphere of the plot and the situation during WWII were well matched and projected onto the reader which made the story feel extremely real. i really appreciated the style of writing. highly poetical and tragical and so beautiful. apart from that i was a little underwhelmed. the different storylines and time jumps were confusing from time to time and it took some time to get used to it. also, at some points the story felt very repetitive and dragged and i think it could have been done with at least 100 pages less. what i really liked however were the extremely well researched background and historical information which added to the feeling and realness of the plot i mentioned at the beginning.

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