Description
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
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A magnificent, deeply moving novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France.
This quickly became one of my favourite books right from the beginning. I have never really been into history books, and know the basics but the ironic timing of just finishing The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank - and a couple days later jumping into this book - shed some more light of the time back then during the 1940s during the Nazi Regime. The story line of not only being introduced to this new way of life with very little adjustment period, but also navigating the world as a blind girl - was absolutely mesmerizing. Anthony Doerr put so much detail into life as a blind person, right down to envisioning what colours Marie-Laure sees in her mind as she pictures her own world. Her father dedicated so much time and energy into making her world as accessible for Marie-Laure which absolutely touched my heart. The build up of her uncle who became frozen due to his own past trauma and the way his world slowly opened up because of Marie-Laure was breathtaking.Werner was such a strong character who had such growth through the whole story that I enjoyed the journey of seeing how he and Marie-Laure would eventually cross paths.So many characters played such vital roles in this novel that it had me in the "just one more chapter....." Mindset through almost all of it. Absolutely recommended.
I am angry and sad and ready to scream. This boy holy shit. Like I need to touch some grass because the emotions he pulled out of me? Brooooooo. I have many thoughts about Werner Pfennig. Babe hold my hand cause I am not alright.