RAE’S READS

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This year (2025) finds me with 53 years of teaching “under my belt.” I have taught all levels from pre-K “(library lady” or “book lady”–volunteer) to juniors, seniors, and graduate students enrolled in my Advanced Writing class at the university where I have just completed 34 years. My first paying teaching job was junior high, and I spent 13 years with ages 12-13, the “difficult years.” I had some of the “funnest” experiences with this age group. When I was no longer the “young, fun teacher,” I taught in an elementary school setting before sixth graders went on to junior high, teaching language arts blocs, an assignment that was a “dream-fit” for me. After completing graduate school in my 40s, I went on to community college, then university teaching. This past fall I accepted a part-time teaching job at Apogee Gulf Coast Schools in its first year at the Alvin campus. After my Better Half died n 2022, I achieved a lifelong dream: opening a bookstore of my own, Rae’s Reads. A year later, I sold the house we had lived in for 47 years and moved into the bookstore. My goal is to circulate and repurpose books. Just as teaching is “in my blood,” so is a passion for reading, writing, libraries, and everything bookish. This blog will be open to anyone who loves books, promotes literacy and wants to “come out and play.”

Review of All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

I must confess straight out that it took me three attempts to successfully finish this novel. The first time, I was teaching and had precious little reading time, and allowed a book club friend who gave up to influence me, and I did the same after reading six or eight chapters.

During the Christmas break, I checked it out from the Alvin library again and immediately was engaged by the main characters, who are skillfully drawn. One is  a blind French girl of superb intelligence and perception who is being raised by her museum curator father on his own. One is immediately drawn to MarieLaure, cares about her ,and appreciates the loving relationship she and her father have.

The second character (most of the book has a chapter about her, one about him, the next about her, etc.), Werner, is a German orphan who is skilled and totally self taught in electronics.  His fascination is with the new invention, the radio.  When he reaches 10 or 12, he is told the Fuhueer needs his skills and is absorbed by a rigorous training program for elite “Hitler Youth”.

No, the two do not meet until the very end of the book, and the outcome is definitely NOT what the reader expects.

The writing is amazing, poetic ,yet flowing at the same time, but it is extremely detailed, and once again, I quit.

After the book had been on the New York Times Best Seller List and had a spike at Christmas when many people gave it to someone as a gift, I decided there “must be something to this book” and checked it out for a final time.

By now, WWII was ending, Marie was in a tiny town where her eccentric and mentally disturbed (thanks to WWI) uncle lived, and her father was in prison.  From the last 1/3 of the book, it became the most suspenseful book I have ever read!

Take a look at this random excerpt: (I literally opened the last 1/4 at random and pointed a finger and copied…)

“…the voices stop. She can hear (remember Marie Laure is blind)a scuffle and then a shot comes…

Footsteps hurry across the landing and enter the room.  There is a splash and a hiss, and she smells smoke and steam…

She can hear…as he runs his fingers along the back of the wardrobe (where she is hiding).  She tightens her grip on the handle of the knife.”

One last word that must be added.  The book is definitely of literary quality in the truest sense of literature.  (As a lit major in my graduate studies, I feel qualified to paste that label on this novel.)

I am so glad I finished this book.  It is the best, bar none, book I have read (or finished, technically)in 2016 so far.

 

 

 

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2 responses to “Review of All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr”

  1. readerbuzz Avatar
    readerbuzz

    There is something about a story written in present tense that makes it feel immediate. That was part of the beauty of this book for me.

    Another aspect of the book that I liked was the blindness of the character. That’s a hard characteristic to pull off, I think, for a sighted author. Somehow, Doerr got this just right. The character’s blindness resulted in a plethora of other sensory images in the story, and I loved the beauty of that, as well.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Rae Longest Avatar
      Rae Longest

      Your insights were (as usual) insightful and much appreciated.

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