All The Light We Cannot See Reflection

Reading: A skill, a pastime, a way to escape this world and enter another. A way to communicate with others. A way to express love, sorrow, joy, anger. A way to persuade. A way to release our emotions that is often taken for granted. We read every day: street signs, ads, a meme on Twitter. However, I have learned that reading is more than just a way to inform or entertain. It can also be a tool used to educate our minds and change the way we think. Not many of the books that end up on my shelf challenge me, but All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is one of these books. It’s challenged my views, made me understand and appreciate the simpler but more important aspects of life. This novel, which follows the journeys of Marie-Laure and

Some days there seems to be too much of it, other days, too little. While reading All the Light We Cannot See, the idea of time became evident as something that should be cherished and used wisely. Werner and Marie-Laure are only 16 and 18 before the war rips away everything they have come to love. Both characters aim to do what they can with their lives, and realize that what they had seen as perpetual was really only temporary, something that could be ripped away in a matter of seconds. When Werner finally meets Marie-Laure, he says that with time, “you should spend all your energy protecting it. Fighting for it. Working so hard not to spill a single drop.” (476) He had limited time to spend with Marie-Laure, as well as the time he spent with his sister Jutta and Volkheimer, a callous friend. There is also only a small time in which Marie-Laure is granted to spend with her father, and as she reflects on her time with him, she says “time is a slippery thing: lose hold of it once, and its string might sail out of your hands forever” (376). Being blind, she must guess of many things, utilizing her sense of hearing, touch, and smell to understand everything around her. Regardless, Marie-Laure understands her surroundings more so than others, and comprehends that she must cherish every