natalie
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“All I can really say for sure is that I've never felt the mystery of the future so much: sense of the hourglass running out, fast-running fever of time. Forces unknown, unchosen, unwilled.”
I wasn't planning on giving this book five stars simply because of how long it took me to read it, but as I was thinking about it I realized just how good this book was. There is an insane amount of detail and it was incredibly well written. Despite the length of the book, it was enjoyable and the characters were so thought out that they felt real.
So I am once again thanking Donna Tartt
“We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs.”[a:Anthony Doerr 28186 Anthony Doerr https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1417812584p2/28186.jpg]'s writing is unique in the way that it is both beautiful and able to get the point across. Many times I find that authors focus too much on prose and are unable to tell the story simultaneously. However, Doerr can do both. The novel takes place over the course of years, from the beginning of the war to the end. The two main characters, Marie-Laure and Werner, are very young when the story begins, and we see them as they grow into teenagers. Marie-Laure is a blind girl living in France with her father, who works at the National Museum of Natural History. Doerr does a great job at bringing their relationship to life. The two of them travel to her great-uncle's house in Saint-Malo where they stay throughout the course of the war. She has a love of shells, which is a reflection of the author's own passions. Werner is a german boy with a gift for science, particularly radios. He is able to fix them in quite little time. Because of this gift, he is placed in a special school where he is some distance away from his sister Jutta, who is younger than him and quite attached. We can see the effect his going away has on her and how it will later shape her life when she never sees him again after he is assigned to the war. Reading this book will make you want to know more, and due to the short chapters, you will keep turning the page. Doerr's attention to detail is admirable; he has a brilliant way of telling stories.
