Lights are just things...

Hy everyone! And welcome to my first book review of the year! 

(sorry iedereen.. opnieuw een engelstalige post :( Volgende week een Nederlandstalige! Belooft!)

I'm going to talk about a book I actually finished reading last year. But because of blogmas I didn't find the time to write a bookreview about it. It was in general a lovely book. But not suited for everyone...I think. Ah well, read on, you can decide for yourself! 

The book is called "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr (an American author) and was one of the books I could tick of my list from last years Reading Challenge. (http://belgiumgirlwithdreams.blogspot.be/2015/05/2015-reading-challenge.html ) Anthony actually became somewhat famous with this book...

So if you are wondering where I got this book: I did an internship for almost 2 months at my local library. And this was one of the books that came in one day and I was drawn to it! I just couldn't keep my eyes of the cover... when I had to put it in place the next day I asked the librarian to put it on my card and now I have it at home :) ( for another 2 days or so XD than I have to return it :p) 

But yeah, that's my plan for this blogpost!! 

If you haven’t read the book yet and you’re planning to read it, DON’T READ THE REST OF THIS POST!!!! ( not that many spoilers but hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you).

For those who continue reading this, WELCOME and enjoy this!

Let me know if you guys ( if you read the book already) thought the same things and what your favorite moments in the story were. And if you haven’t read the book but are planning to, after reading this blogpost, what changed your mind? Tell me! I really wanna know

Finally, I want to say that this won’t be a boring book report but an insight (in case you haven’t realized) in what I felt when I read the book and what my favorite moments were.

And yes, again, I copied and pasted some things of my last book reviews in this one again. 

About the book itself

Dutch cover 

English/American cover

To be honest, I like the dutch cover more than I like the American one... I think it's because there are people on the cover and the color is more attractive than the blue one....  the font is okay, like all books :) Nothing more to say about it

The story =  This next part won’t be straightforward ( sorry to all my teachers :p ) but a concurrence(? I don’t know if this is the right word) of all my thoughts and feelings… sorry about that! )

Again this was a story that needed my full attention ( just like a green flower ;) (http://belgiumgirlwithdreams.blogspot.be/2015/11/flowers-arent-always-what-they-seem.html ). The story is definitely NOT straightforward! It's in bits and pieces to be honest. And that is the hardest part of the book. You really, really need to stay focused and return a few pages when you don't know what year you're in. But I like the idea of throwbacks in a book. It's complicated to write, complicated to follow but so great when you finally read the whole story! You get a lot of background on the two main characters. And I'm so bumped they didn't start a relationship! Now that would be a very romantic ending for the book. 

On the other hand, the ending is everything I'd expected. I'm glad he took the story to this "time". You already knew how the characters evolved in the war... in the last chapter, you get to know what happend to the 2 main characters. 

Because I live in Belgium, we learn about the holocaust and other things about Germany. We always learned that the Germans were bad people and stuff like that. But after reading this book I know that not all Germans were bad. Some of them didn't like the war at all, they didn't want to fight or kill everyone they met or something like that. That's another reason I really like the 2 main characters in the book. One of them, Werner, is German and the author really did an amazing job on his thoughts and feelings during the war. 

In my last bookreview about the green flower trilogy, I said that the story was slow at some points. But that wasn't the case with this one. It just went on and on and on and on :p Doerr just got me hooked all the time! 

The theme... new! That's the word to describe it. New. It was new because it's a theme that not many authors have written about. The theme is not "the war" like most of you would think about now, it's "blindness" and how Marie-Laure, the other main character, experiences the war as a blind person. It's really amazing to read and understand something from a whole other point of view. (okay okay, bad choice of words)

But I stop here with my review. If you want to know more, just ask but I could go on about this book for another 3 hours I think.

My favorite moments in the book(not in that order)

* The first time "Dad" let Marie-Laure find her way back home from the museum by herself. That was a bit of a "What on earth do you think you're doing?! Don't let that girl wander by herself! You imbecile!" and "Come on Marie, you can do it!' kind of moment for me :)

* When Werner met Frederick. Reminded me of my first day of high school

* Every birthday Marie had in the book. I want a dad like that! Loved the puzzles! 

* First time great uncle Etienne left his room to speak with Marie :)

* First time Werner and Marie met... Sparks, just spraks I tell you! 

* When Werner repairs his first radio

* Everything that had to do with Jutta! 

* When Werner was called to the office after making the motor on his own (just read the book!)

* The secret radio behind the closet

* The little place with the snails. I don't know why but that's something that stayed with me for a while.. And something I can imagine because of the description Marie gave herself :) 

Voila, that’s it for this week!

Untill next time!

bye!

x