All the Light We Cannot See. Book 1 Setting: 1930s- WW2

All the Light We Cannot See  - Anthony Doerr

Fact File

Protagonists -   French Marie Laure   and German orphan Werner.
When and Where: Occupied France and Germany (1934- 1945) The Second World War
Perspective : Third Person ( Mostly limited to the point of view of the two central characters - Marie Laure and Werner.) Sometimes for a page or so the narrative may shift to another character's perspective as the narrative  demands.
Genre: Drama
Historical Value:  You will find this book enjoyable and relevant  if you are currently learning or want to learn more about...

Fascism , Nazi indoctrination of young German children and teenagers , The French Resistance to German rule during the French Occupation, war related Trauma/ PTSD WW2 as  experienced by ordinary civilians and   war time life from the perspective of a disabled person.

The Review - What this book is about and Why I enjoyed it as a reader

All the Light we Cannot See is a novel that was published by Anthony Doerr in 2014, It won the Putlizer Prize for fiction in 2015 - so there is no question that it is a novel of unquestionable merit. Surprisingly despite it being critically acclaimed and generally well known... I hadn't heard of it and stumbled upon it just recently
All the Light We Cannot See narrates the story  two very different children .   Marie Laure lives in France with her beloved father. Keeper of keys at the Natural History Museum in Paris. She has been blind since the age of six  that limits her capacity but that has done little to deter her passion for knowledge  particularly of the  the natural landscape. Books help her imagine places beyond her own confinement.
Her world consists of her neighbourhood, the Museum and her father. In the terror and confusion that   comes at the wake of the French defeat they are forced to flee from Paris to St Malo. To live her ,  So haunted by memories of the Great War that the present one seems irrelevant and far away.
Worlds apart from Marie Laure  German orphan  and  radio repairman Werner harbours big dreams of a life beyond the mines - a life building things. He gets just that (or so it seems to him). When he is selected for elite training at the German political Institute whose boys are to be the future of the Third Reich. But Werner is  too young or too ambitious perhaps to really know what he's signed up for..
Werner's stay at the German Political Institute will bring him face to face the brutality of the regime. He is favoured by
The plot may not sound so mind blowing at first.   But this is a beautiful and captivating  novel.  That explores the tragedy of war and ignorance  not through the lens of larger events of mass death and destruction but through the effects it has on individual lives. The tiny ways  in which it hurts others  and disrupts and crushes dreams and desires. How people continue to find  some
 beauty and happiness despite  that
As Marie Laure confronts the limitations her disability poses while attempting to help French Resistance and Werner grapples with the inner conflict he experiences while training to become an instrument for the Reich. ...'He cannot go he cannot stay'. Anthony Doerr draws you in with his powerful prose. He is able to convey  grief, heartache, love, loss, fear and apprehension  through just a  a few well chosen words. Indeed he never wastes words. But the words he does use are simple and poignant. They really did touch my soul. Fixing machines is easy.. People can be  harder to put back together and war leaves some people irreparably broken.
If one thing unites the  central  characters in All The Light we cannot See. be it Marie Laure. Werner, Etienne although they are enormously different it is their passion for acquiring knowledge. They take great delight in the wonders of nature.  and I think it has an important message at it heart.   For even when one is surrounded by violence, cruelty and unhappiness. Nature is still grand and wonderful and no matter the scale of the conflict they unleash - even if it is a  World War. Humans and there squabbles are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The world is ancient. It has been there for millions of years before us and perhaps it will be there for millions after. The ignorance and bigotry of Nazism seems more painfully clear when considering the larger theme of this novel. 
Its quite a long novel but once you pick it up you will find it very difficult.
I encourage you to read it if you haven't already.  I would recommend it to not just a person interested in history of this time but  to anyone at all who likes to read. It was a pure pleasure.