All The Light We Cannot See By Anthony Doerr

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, brings light to the good in the world, even in the midst of one of the world’s most destructive wars: World War II. This novel follows the storylines of two characters: Marie-Laure LeBlanc, and Werner Pfennig. Marie-Laure and her father, Daniel LeBlanc, live in Paris, where Daniel is the locksmith for the National Museum of Natural History. Because she is rapidly losing her sight, Marie-Laure’s father crafted intricate and precise models of their neighborhood for her to memorize by touch. When the war moves into France, the museum is forced to smuggle their most valuable assets to safety. One of these is the Sea of Flames, a pigeon egg-sized diamond with red flecks and veins in its center. It is fabled to have the power to keep the possessor safe from death, but brings death to their loved ones. In an effort to protect their most valuable treasure, the museum has three likenesses made. The four stones, three fakes and one real, are given to four different men, one of which being Marie-Laure’s father. As they flee to the citadel of Saint-Malo, Daniel contemplates whether the stone he possesses could possibly be the authentic one. After a strenuous journey, Marie-Laure and her father reach her uncle’s home by the sea. Her uncle, Etienne, is an agoraphobic recluse who has sequestered himself inside his home. He warms up to Marie-Laure eventually, and they become even closer when Marie’s father is arrested and sent to a work camp.

In the lurid, flickering light, he see that the airplane was not alone, that the sky teems with them, a dozen sweeping back and forth, racing in all directions, and in a moment of disorientation, he feels that he’s looking not up, but down, as though a spotlight has been shined into a wedge of bloodshot water, and the sky has become the sea, and the airplanes are hungry fish, harrying their prey in the dark (page