? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is the quintessential summer read for fans of the World Wars. The events are set between Saint-Malo, a small, walled beach city in France that was flattened during World War II and several locations in Germany and the Western front. We receive a retelling of the war from the perspective of two children growing up on opposite sides of the conflict and being drawn to each other in a most unusual way — the radio. As an orphan growing up in a mining town in Germany, Werner and his sister Jutta find an escape from their mundane lives through a French radio station that broadcasts lectures on philosophy and plays classical music as opposed to the propaganda that dominated German radio. In France, Marie-Laure is the daughter of the Head Locksmith of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, who lost her mother when she was born and lost her sight by the age of 6. As the war loomed closer, Marie-Laure’s father sent her to his uncle in Saint-Malo, and gave her another miniature of the city for her to freely navigate. As she spends time exploring Saint-Malo she discovers two secrets, a radio locked up in her grand uncle's attic that broadcasts every night and a treasure inside her miniature of Saint-Malo.

This book was written as an homage to Saint-Malo, a city whose horizon has changed completely since WWII, the strides technology took during the war, the radio, and its impact on the outcomes of the war. The short chapters, leaps in narrative, and true historical references make this novel an absolute page-turner.

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