A Good Read

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Marie-Laurea, a blind girl, lives with her father who is a locksmith at the Paris Museum of Natural History. Marie-Laure is raised in the museum and at home. She has a semi-idyllic childhood until, aged 12 the Nazi's invade Paris and she and her father flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea.
Unknown to Marie-Laure, her father is smuggling what is probably the world's most priceless jewel out of the city on behalf of the museum. It's price tag is beyond monetary value, many believe it has magical powers, in that whoever possesses the stone will not die, but people around that person will succumb to misfortune. A German soldier also knows about the jewel  and will stop at nothing to find it.
Meanwhile in a mining town in Germany, orphans Werner and his sister find a crude radio which Werner fixes, and they become enchanted with the news and stories they hear from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing radios and after repairing a senior-ranking German officer's radio he is enlisted into a youth academy that trains young soldiers for Hitler's army. He is then drafted to utilise his skills to find resistance armies who are using radio waves - but Werner is no soldier and soon realises the cost of his talent.

This isn't a riveting "can't put it down book" but it is a good story. The writing is hauntingly beautiful and very emotional. Reading how her father taught Marie-Laurea to navigate their home and the town is inspirational. The description of the almost complete destruction of Saint-Malo is palpable. Despite the atrocities happening around them it is a nice story of two lives intertwining as they struggle to survive the devastation of WWII. 

〜 Stay Safe & Well 〜
Polly x