The pride of Anthony Doerr that’s really worth the Pulitzer prize! This is one book you will not be able to get hands off. Doerr’s writing is so vivid and picturing that transports the reader into the book story, back in World War II.
Little Marie-Laure leaves in Paris with her father. He is working at the Paris Museum of Natural History as a locksmith and Marie-Laure spends there most of her time. At the age of six, she looses her vision, which makes her explore the world through all her other senses on the safety of her home, until her father builds her a perfect miniature of their Paris neighborhood, which broadens her horizon.
“How do you ever know for certain that you are doing the right thing?”
At the same time, there is an orphan boy in Germany, that lives with his sister, who is destined to work at the same mine that consumed his father life. He is clever enough to think of so many “why’s” on this world, until he finds and repairs a radio, completely on his own. This is his ticket to a school that builds soldiers and for Germany’s army. His ticket to the war, instead of a ticket to science as promised.
“All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?”
The book is a kind of war chronicle through the eyes of the two heroes. Two children so different from each other, yet so similar. They are both as innocent as the white snow, yet they become less innocent as the war evolves, while they never turn into the dark side of man. They only move some steps away from their crystal clear selves. After all, those were difficult times to stay upright.
“Is it right,” Jutta says, “to do something only because everyone else is doing it?”
The book is clearly a bell that rings into the readers mind. How much can we control our own life, our actions and thoughts? What would we do to protect those we love? What would we sacrifice for a better life? Would it be ourselves, something or someone we love? Or maybe none of it? Can we find a balance in disturbed times, between us and what is expected by us?
“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”
The book is full of great quotes, demonstrating Doerr’s literature spirit. A book to love for all times…
