All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

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Doerr creates a very interesting piece. There are time shifts and two little kids growing up harshly in landslide of war.

Werner lives in Germany and is an orphan along with his sister near a mining town. He loves taking apart radios and transistors and basically learning all he can on his own about science and electronics. He must leave his sister, though, as war breaks out, and he's accepted into the Hitler's Youth program.

Marie-Laure lives in France. We see her go blind at a very young age and how her father creates a miniature town for Marie-Laure. Her world is one she can't see but can feel.

We see their time before the war and when war breaks out and eventually the events that bring these two people together.

I really enjoyed the story from the views of these characters. We see how Werner struggles to keep his humanity and yet how he can be apart of all Germany stood for during the war.

But Doerr threw in a third character...an ancient mysterious jewel and a German geologist going to the ends of the earth to find it. It felt a little hokey to me. I think the story would have been a lot stronger without this little magical and superstitious sidetrack.

I also had a hard time following the way the timelines flowed. We didn't stick with any one character too long and thus I felt it disjointed my reading flow.

It's beautifully written and offers a unique look of World War II through Werner's and Marie-Laure's eyes but it just didn't quite flow together for me. It took me a very long time to read this. It's worth a read, of course, but it wasn't my favorite.

“I have been feeling very clearheaded lately and what I want to write about today is the sea. It contains so many colors. Silver at dawn, green at noon, dark blue in the evening. Sometimes it looks almost red. Or it will turn the color of old coins. Right now the shadows of clouds are dragging across it, and patches of sunlight are touching down everywhere. White strings of gulls drag over it like beads.

It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.”

Reading With Gabe--Little House in the Big Woods

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It's been hard this year getting used to Gabe in full-time school. I'm a stay-at-home parent and I enjoy (most of the time) being home with him. Kindergarten was the time to ease into the whole school schedule with only half days. But here in Japan it's been all day.

I wanted to connect with him more in my own way. So I've been reading various books to him throughout the year. Life gets busy, especially with him in school all day so we don't get through as many books as I'd like but we've managed to read Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved the books as a kid and I enjoyed the TV series. It's been a great experience sitting down with him at night and reading. Gabe enjoyed Pa's tales and his songs. He even wanted me to sing some of them to him. There was only one I knew the tune to, though.

There are a lot of great children's fiction today but there are also so many that aren't. I've ordered a few chapter books for him from his school and they haven't been great. Just silly and that's OK. But I want him to know what really good literature is as well. And Little House in the Big Woods is that. With our modern conveniences it's so easy to forget that only 100 years ago we didn't have our modern appliances and ease of life. Wilder describes how everything was done and made. How did a family survive? Fascinating. A simple tale about Laura and her family in a year.

I look forward to reading the rest with him and I hope he enjoys it on his own one day.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

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It's been awhile since I've read some top-notch adult fiction. I loved Kidd's "Secret Life of Bees" and "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter." Her prose held me. I didn't even realize this was a story about actual two sisters who were abolitionist-feminists. It's an awesome writer who can pull together fact and fiction and do it justice.

I am so glad that Kidd intertwined the story of Handful, a slave in their home. Through her voice we got to see and hear and try to feel even a pinch of what life was like for slaves during this time. So often we hear of stories where white people help black people. Yes this is true. Whites have been the ones with the power. We know this. But I want to hear about their stories. The slaves. What they did to rebel, survive, live, etc and to save themselves. I love that Kidd thought about this and put stories like these into her narrative.

It was a bit disjointed. She jumped a lot from one point in history to another but I feel that was the best way to do a historical fiction biography like this. So even though it felt a bit uneven, I see why it was necessary.

Overall, it was a poignant, powerful, and inspiring book.

I loved these quotes:

"First time I saw it, my feet hopped in place and I lifted my hand over my head and danced. That's when I got true religion. I didn't know to call it religion back then, didn't know Amen from what-when, I just knew something came into me that made me feel the water belonged to me."

"Mauma didn't fall again, though, and I reckoned Gad had lent me an ear, but maybe that ear wasn't white, maybe the world had a colored God, too, or else it was mauma who kept her own self standing, who answered my prayer with the strength of her limbs and the grip of her heart."

"People say love gets fouled by a difference big as ours. I didn't know for sure whether Miss Sarah's feelings came from love or guilt. I didn't know whether mine came from love or a need to be safe. She loved me and pitied me. And I loved her and used her. It never was a simple thing. That day, our hearts were pure as they ever would get."

"There's no pain on earth that doesn't crave a benevolent witness."

"I saw then what I hadn't seen before, that I was very good at despising slavery in the abstract, in the removed and anonymous masses, but in the concrete, intimate flesh of the girl beside me, I'd lost the ability to be repulsed by it. I'd grown comfortable with the particulars of evil. There's a frightful muteness that dwells at the center of all unspeakable things, and I had found my way into it."

"History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another's pain in the heart our own."

Mini Book Reviews

I've had a hard time getting my reviews up whether for movies or books. I seem to do better with Cat Thursdays cuz cat pictures are just so cute and easy to put up....

Here we go...

1. Yes Please by Amy Poehler

She's hilarious and humble and real. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. I need to get it on audio as well and listen.

2. American Afterlife: Encounters in the Customs of Mourning by Kate Sweeney

This was a fascinating look at how Americans have mourned and how we are changing our mourning customs to date. I got lots of ideas on how I may want to be buried. It helped me look at death a bit more. I still need to get my affairs in order...

3. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride by Cary Elwes.

I love the movie and so this was so fabulous to read. I learned so many little tidbits about how the movie was made and how the actors got along or little stories that were hilarious. Cary Elwes had someone help him write this so it isn't the greatest writing in the world but its about the content. This is a must have and read for any fan.

4. The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

It was a bit slow but overall I loved the story of Alma. She's a woman during the early and mid 1800s who becomes an expert in mosses. She experiences life and discovers a theory on evolution around the same time as Charles Darwin. Gilbert expertly weaves what women scientists experiences during this and continue to in certain degrees to this day.

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

I'm enjoying reading through this series again. I actually didn't finish The Return of the King the first time so I'm looking forward to finishing it this time around. Tolkien is amazing at high fantasy. Beautiful scenery, history, and characters. I enjoyed reading the differences between the movie and the book. Some things were great but some didn't sit as well with me. But overall the movie does a great job with the material.

*All book cover images were taken from Goodreads.com