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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
62,800 global ratings
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All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See

byAnthony Doerr
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Top positive review

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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsA Dark Light.
Reviewed in Australia on 29 May 2021
All The Lights We Cannot See is brilliantly written. It isn't a book I usually read. I found myself in a different world.
The characters are wonderful with the main two both brave souls.
Werner Pfennig has a sister, Jutta, Werner fines he can fix wireless, he and Jutta find a station broadcasting lessons on science. Once people know, all call on Werner to fix their wireless. With war braking out Werner knows he wont go down the mines. So he does a hard cause which he passes that lead him down a place of darkness.
Then there's young Marie - Laure who sadly goes blind. With the help of her loving father she is taught brail from books he buys her and ways for finding herself around with her cain by counting. As the casualties of war start, Marie - Laure is taken to her great uncle Elienne LeBlain's place. When Marie-Laure's father goes out one day, never to return, it's Elienne the one who always hides away from the past, brings life back to Marie-Laure and himself, who has began to love his great niece. One day he takes her to the 6th floor where he shows her his wireless hidden inside a wardrobe at the back. Sometime later, finding herself all alone when her uncle doesn't return she goes to the wardrobe where she reads out her books and plays music. It at the ending of the war and while playing with the wireless, Werner hears it. They go out looking, Werner finds Marie-Laure he says to her..."You are very brave ", She lowers the bucket "What's is your name?. He tells her, When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was very brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it's not brave, I had no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don't you do the sane?"
He says."Not in many years. But today. Today maybe I did",
It was from Marie -Laure that Werner learns out the lessons on science , he and his sister listerned to came from, Marie - Laure's grandfather all that time ago.
A very sad read, that makes war, so sad to those who were too young, as these were.
Highly recommended read.
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4 people found this helpful

Top critical review

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Austea
1.0 out of 5 starsMarred by elementary technical gaffes about radio, by an excessively chopped up timeline that undermines suspense.
Reviewed in Australia on 3 April 2019
It is inexplicable why a technically ignorant author did not either read up on radio or use an appropriate editor. Not only do the blunders occur throughout this novel, they are intrusive and affect the plot.

It is gauche to lift an incident ("He fixes radio by thinking") straight out of Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman s autobiographical stories and assign it to a child half Feynman s age at the time, as if to make Werner twice as smart.

The radio blunders are also historical. Elementary research would have shown that Grundig did not make radios until after the War. It is anomalous to have a Nazi officer own an American Philco while German Telefunkin and Siemans radios of the period were just as complex, and as emphasised in the book, it was unpatriotic to own a US one. Dirty cardboard cutout Russian rapists have crude and contemptible radios. In fact, Russian army field radios were either supplied by the US or close copies. None were "milled out of steel".

Though Werner s radio location team hunted in areas with the German armies and SS extermination squads that massacred prisoners, Jews, Poles and Russian civilians alike, there is no mention of this.

The historical setting of wartime France, particularly after 1943, is unrealistic because the roles of the Resistance, collaborators and the Vichy government are ignored. As D-day approached it would have been dangerous for lone German officers and soldiers to wander about, especially if they were robbing French civilians. No acts of sabotage are recounted, yet the Hotel of the Bees which housed an 88 never lost power or supplies. By the way, bumblebees do not make honey.
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10 people found this helpful

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From Australia

Susanna Lynley
3.0 out of 5 stars Not a Page Turner
Reviewed in Australia on 9 April 2016
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This is a beautifully written book. The research was impressive and detailed but the pace of the book was interminably slow and made even more so by flashbacks which were at times confusing. The prose became more important than the plot and consequently hindered the rhythm of the work, as a result it was far too long and unnecessarily drawn out. If it had been more tightly edited and it was much shorter, it would have been a more satisfactory experience for this reader.
8 people found this helpful
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Teresa
3.0 out of 5 stars Slow Burner
Reviewed in Australia on 8 April 2021
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This took a while to get into, were it not the only book I had on my roadtrip I might've given up on it, and I don't often give up on books. And when I did get into it, I wasn't hooked, was a nice read though.
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Roshni Sladen
3.0 out of 5 stars Boring
Reviewed in Australia on 20 August 2021
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Narrative story, found it interesting only towards the end. Had high expectations as it’s based on Second World War, but disappointed with how the story ended.
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Susan Burrell
3.0 out of 5 stars A great read- no happy ending though
Reviewed in Australia on 30 April 2016
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Loved the book, an exciting and interesting read, great, well-drawn characters, but the ending, while realistic, was very anti- climactic.
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Patrick Callaghan
3.0 out of 5 stars I didn't think this book lived up to the hype
Reviewed in Australia on 24 November 2015
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The plot and the characters should have made for a wonderful read, but I found the very short chapters and the jumping back and forward in time off putting
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Elizabeth O'Hare
3.0 out of 5 stars It is well written and easy to read
Reviewed in Australia on 13 April 2016
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too much self help for my taste. It is well written and easy to read.
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Neuronhead
3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and melancholy
Reviewed in Australia on 26 April 2017
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Three stars for the quality. The two I withheld were just due to my personal taste and the mood I was in. True to its themes, it's a sad story. It was satisfyingly well crafted.
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Renee
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in Australia on 16 May 2016
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It jumped too much and too quickly for me to get into the characters
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Nicholas Reid
3.0 out of 5 stars Not fully convinced
Reviewed in Australia on 27 April 2015
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I liked the story, the characterisation and the prose, all of which could have made for an enthralling work. My main problem lay in the book's structure, with its alternating chapters following (mainly) the lives of the two protagonists: Werner and Marie Laure. It's a structure Dickens used in 'Bleak House', but the difference here is that the chapters are only two to three pages long. And just as you begin to fall into the character's story, the chapter ends and you have to shift to the totally different world of the other character. The structure frustrated me. I'm also not convinced that the novel had anything much to say, in thematic terms. What is the significance of ML's blindness? Or of the diamond, with its associated story of ruin?
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MP
3.0 out of 5 stars interesting history
Reviewed in Australia on 15 January 2015
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Being of a generation untouched by war, I enjoy reading this type of novel. It gives great insight to the people involved, their harsh lives and thoughts. During wartime no one is in control of their destiny.

I find it difficult to read when there are two story lines and each flipping to different times, back and forward, hence only three stars. However the content of the tale is mesmerising.
4 people found this helpful
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