I was very happy to find "All the Light We Cannot See" - my daughter read it as a self-selected book for Grade 12 English, and my wife and I read it subsequently.
The book is based around WWII, and follows two main characters - a young, blind girl from France, and a young German boy. As you can guess, the German boy gets drafted, and is identified as very handy with radios, so he ends up scanning for spies across occupied Europe. The young girl and her father are forced to leave Paris and live elsewhere through the German occupation.
The story is told well - very short chapters keep the storylines moving by sequencing each chapter to a particular story arc. There are also some jumps in time, where the story is not told entirely sequentially.
Doerr's book does a great job of describing the same events from the different perspectives, and manages to tell a wartime story without very much referencing of the war itself - you hear rumours from the townsfolk about how the war is going, you see the gradual loss of lifestyle even if direct warfare does not run through your living room. Both main characters are portrayed realistically and both are treated respectfully - you can respect the hardships the German inductee goes through and the hardships living under occupation experienced by the young woman and her family with no need to play the situations off against each other - both were taken from "normal" life and subjected to incredible situations at a very young age.
A great read and a highly recommended page turner. I'm going to look for more titles from this author.
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