Sunday, August 23, 2015

All The Light We Cannot See in review




What an EPIC read by Anthony Doerr
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

A New York Times Bestseller…
A Pulitzer Prize winner!

I loved it.

If you haven't read this magical novel…
but you plan to…
maybe you shouldn't read this.
I won't be cautious in my writing 
or alert you to any spoilers.

Take a few days…
go read it…
and come back to this.

A quick synopsis of the book…
Doerr takes a moment in history, a rare gem, 
two people with huge obstacles and knowledge of 
communication…
 to weave a story that is 
ridiculously captivating, 
thought provoking and 
deeply moving.

In a little more detail…
A curious French girl goes blind... 
a German orphan boy 
with an amazing talent for working and building radios…
find themselves moving through life
and eventually…
their stories weave together.

The book was presented like short chapters
of a journal entry. 
It didn't captivate me until I got to
around page 80.
By the way, this is another doozie…530 pages.

Vanessa and Amanda had both read it and 
encouraged me to keep turning the pages.

I'm so glad I did.

I kept thinking about the title.
What did it mean?  

I thought…could he be referencing the light 
they found in the darkness of wartime?

As you read the dual story,
you wonder how soon it is before the two 
are going to meet.
Let me tell you...
You read almost the entire book 
before they actually
come face to face.

I was hoping for a romance and a fairy tale ending…
because it seemed like that is where it would go.

However, true love would be too predictable as an ending. 

We are often reminded that life doesn't always
turn out as planned.
I kept waiting for their lives to intersect…
and it was for less than 24 hours.

Why?

Why did she protect the diamond to then toss it away?

Why is there no resolution about her father?

Why was Frederick in the wrong place in life at the wrong time? 

The unknown questions were frustrating but created 
a realistic and real world.
No fairy tale here.

When do we ever get things wrapped up all pretty
and from what I have read about war…
you end up with a lot of things we may
never know.

You would think we would be hardened to 
the descriptions of war…
the chaos, the bloodshed, 
depravity…
the evil.

War…
so destructive.  
Yet these two…it never
annihilated their hope…
or mine for them.

This young man trapped in darkness…
listens to a girl's voice over the radio…
he hoped…she hoped.

I paused sometimes in my reading…
thinking about some of my why's.
I thought about the metaphors and his lyrical writing.

I thought about when Vanessa and I were little girls.
One day our brother wanted to show us a prism he had.
I can distinctly remember being in the back yard and he said 
watch this.
We watched him take this gem like stone and tilt it and 
it reflected light.
How was it possible this prism separated white light
into a spectrum of colors?
It was so beautiful…we wanted to hold it…
we wanted one of our own.

Our own Sea of Flames.

Light we cannot see.

It brought the book together for me in a way.
All the light we cannot see…could this be my interpretation.
His radio waves…unseen…but heard.
The stone…unseen…but wanted.
The journey.

The brain has power to create light in darkness…
he was in the darkness of the coal mine listening to her voice…
her blindness never shown as something to pity. 

The light in this book shoots from 
many different directions and every time I saw it…
it seemed like pure magic.

Gems are made valuable and in this case, powerful by
those who seek them but remain nothing
more than stones found in a creek to others.

What did he do with the stone?

Why did Doerr have them meet for literally an instant…
and then he died…
 his death came out of nowhere for me.
Unexpected.

I loved his bravest moment…
when he confronts Von Rumpel.

It states, "All your life you wait, 
and then it finally comes, and are you ready?"

Are you ready to open your eyes and see what you can with them?
Do you want to be alive before you die?
Do you want to LIVE before you die?

Perhaps, instead of pursuing diamonds,
money, treasures…

instead of going to war and destroying lives…
instead of listening to nationalized propaganda…

instead of the mundane…mindless…meaningless
things we choose to pursue…

Why don't we pursue "all that we cannot see"…
Why don't we listen to and become more aware?

The plight of everyman is to live the life presented...
even under the most discouraging circumstances. 

These two lives are
beautifully embodied in this epic tale.

They lived.  

They plodded.

They held out hope.

They were the light.







  

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Cowboys Are My Weakness...in review

My friend Cindy texted me before Christmas…
have you read Cowboys Are My Weakness?  
I hadn't.  
Next thing I knew…I had a copy of the book.  
She is so cool like that.


I'll be honest…
cowboys are a weakness…
have you ever seen or been around a real cowboy?

Whoa.

In truth, men are a weakness…
don't act like you don't feel the same way.  

Marlboro Man come to mind?  
He did for me.

 I was looking forward to reading it.  

I wrote this today because I finished the book this morning and 
it just so happened Cindy texted me asking how I was enjoying it.
I felt compelled to write her a review of my thoughts…
and overall, I liked it.

This book is a vignette of stories…
but I found the themes and characters wound so closely together…
it feels like there are barely any spaces in between them.  
There is a certain redundancy to the stories…
similar themes…kind of like a country song on repeat.

 Most of the time as I was reading..
I wondered if it wasn't really her story…
Not Cindy's…the author's.
I'd like to ask her…is this really fiction? 

The beauty I found was in her writing…
how it created this feeling…
the truth of her words…like I'd been there before.  
We all have.  

We've all dated that guy before.  
The one where we change who we are. 
Do we really love all of the adventure?  
Or do we become what we think they want?  

Like, you've never once thought of jumping out of a plane but he suggests it…
 or buys the opportunity for you on your birthday
 and you feel like you should because he is so excited about it…
 and you want him to like you. 
(Btw, this really happened to me…
 and I told him to take someone else…
I don't jump from planes…I can barely get on one).  

Or, you become a class five kayaker 
because every weekend you are scouting for the best rapid?  
Yea, I get it.

I really do. 

One of those weaknesses a few of us share…
we want the bad boys.  

It's funny…as I kept reading…I kept thinking the same thing.  
How does she stick around for this beating?  
(I am sure I have friends who have thought this about me)

She should have known better…
and she probably did…
but she did it anyway…
and then, somehow within the midst of it all…
 she got confused and then she was surprised
 and then thankfully…
she finally left.  

We can only hope that we continue to learn from each relationship 
and not keep repeating the same mistake…
even if we are smart…
independent and not really quite sure what we are looking for.
We hope that our fear of testosterone dependency 
doesn't get the best of us so we keep returning to…that.

"…I should know better, but I love it when he calls me baby." 
That about sums it up sometimes…
what he says…how he says it…
and you don't care how it really is…
you just take it for what it isn't.

The book, as it turns out…if you haven't picked up on it…
it's about the wrong guy, over and over.  
UGH.  

These smart women choosing the wrong man…and they know it. 
 I would guess…they don't think they deserve any better.  

"He was smart and selfish and lied by omission.  
I was addicted to him like cough syrup, and I didn't respect his mind."

We all have dreams about what our perfect man would be like.  
Maybe you date him…or maybe you married him?  
Maybe you are still looking for him?

Perhaps…like me…it would be the Marlboro Man.  
That's who I envisioned the entire time I was reading this. 

The reality is…
or what you eventually find out in life, is that they are all real men…
the kind of men you meet everyday.  

One of the characters says, "Is sex ever love?"

What is love?

Love is a drug.  
A person can become an addiction regardless of the commitment.  

For me personally…
the book made me want to head back out west.
With her writing I could see the sunsets…
and feel the water from the rapids.

We all want to be loved by someone…
regardless of what we feel we deserve.

I think I've said it before…
I have a knack for choosing the wrong guy…
just like these women.
It's the reoccurring themes in these relationships that I have been ignoring…
just like these women.

I keep searching for answers where the questions are unseen.

Advice for future lovers:  
Don't ask me what I'm looking for…
I only know how to tell you what I am supposed to want.

And, if you listen to what I am supposed to want…
how quickly that relationship will become boring
 and uninteresting...
as dull and ugly to me as the color yellow.

Now, I'm off to find some of those red cowboy boots...