I resisted reading this book for a while--until a friend recommended the book strongly. I have read many books set during World War II over the years. And I thought there simply could not be a new telling of this tale. I was wrong.
This beautifully interwoven story, told from the point-of-view of several characters, is lyrical and poignant in how it brings a terrible time to life. The main character, a blind girl named Marie Laure, is the long thread that pulls through the whole story. As the Nazi's occupy Paris, a young, brilliant engineering soldier enters the German army. An ill colonel chases a final prize and small town citizens resist every day.
The heart of the tale is about puzzles and treasures and how all the characters keep unlocking pieces as they make their journey through the war.
There are no simple happy endings making the story that much more heartfelt and unforgettable. The quality of the writing is confirmed by the Pulitzer Prize awarded the book this past year.
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About the Author
Anthony Doerr is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See. He is also the author of two story collections Memory Wall and The Shell Collector, the novel About Grace, and the memoir Four Seasons in Rome. He has won four O. Henry Prizes, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award, the National Magazine Award for fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Story Prize. Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two sons.
