Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~ ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ I loved this a lot more than I thought I would. It took me longer to read than normal, but for the first time in a long time I had a book where I felt the need to significantly slow down my reading pace and savor ever single word. It is truly beautifully written. I struggled getting into it in the beginning because the chapters where so short and each chapter was a new character or event that it was a little off-putting (confusing), but it didn't take long for me to immerse myself in it. The relationship between Marie and her grandfather was one of my favorites, and I loved Werner's story line, especially in regards to his relationships with Frederick and Volkheimer. It was nice to read a story about WWII that was not about someone in a concentration camp, or a Jewish person in hiding. Though it is a work of fiction (from what I know) it is historically relevant/accurate, and addresses the lives of a young blind French girl in a city being fought in, and a young man who is forced into what is essentially the Hitler Youth school, and forced to the front lines when he is too young. I am happy that I chose this book. I give this a 4 out of 5.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Blog Contents:Alaska Stuff Archives
September 2016
Categories |