All the Light We Cannot See By Anthony Doerr
I’m not usually a fan of historical fiction, but I did really enjoy this book. It’s set before and during WWII. The story follows two main characters, Marie-Laure, the blind daughter of a museum worker in Paris, and Werner, an orphan living in a German mining town. Each character has two plot lines, one taking place before the war in 1934 and one taking place near the end of the war in 1945.
Marie-Laure’s 1934 plot line follows her as she navigates Paris as a newly-blind person. It details her learning how to read braille and find her way around the streets in her neighborhood. After Germany occupies Paris in 1940, Marie-Laure and her father are entrusted with a priceless gemstone from the natural history museum’s collection.
Werner’s 1934 plot line details his life in a poor German orphanage and how Hitler’s propaganda indoctrinates young children. After being noticed for his skills with radios, Werner is sent to a Hitler Youth academy where he is trained to join the German army.
These two plot lines happen simultaneously with their 1945 stories. In both, the characters are trapped in the same French town being bombed.
While I did enjoy this book, there are a few reasons I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. The chapters are extremely short (sometimes only a page or two), and it switches constantly between both characters and each of their plot lines. This makes the book harder to follow, as there are seemingly many events happening at the same time. It also prevented me from immersing myself in any one story, as they were constantly being interrupted. Overall, the story was strong and compelling, though the ending did make the story feel more cheap. Without going into spoilers, Werner lacked character development and his story at the end was noticeably weaker than Marie-Laure’s. Despite being indoctrinated as a child and a member of the German army, Werner never has to face the reality of his actions. He lacks emotional or ideological conflict, and seems to go through the story unaware of the Holocaust. I don’t doubt that many German soldiers were unaware of the extent of the tragedy, but the fact that Werner never addresses it makes it seem like he got the “easy way out.”
Overall, I thought this was a well written and thought-provoking story. The characters were likable despite their faults and hardships, though they lacked a level of ideological depth I wanted to see from this story. My main issue with Werner was that he lacked development or conflict, as if he remained the same character over the 11 years the book spans. Maire-Laure was a stronger character, however she spent most of the story in hiding. This led to her character lacking agency or drive for stretches of the story.
I would recommend this book to others. It’s a good jumping off point for people new to historical fiction and is a surprisingly quick read despite being over 500 pages.
-Alaina
o its location in the Pacific Ocean, and the crew of 20 men trying to stay alive and getting rescued. It is a nonfiction book, told through the receipts and tellings of the surviving crew members, but the events of the story make it feel like a historical fiction book. The novel goes through the men traversing on three different boats, running out of food and water numerous times, finding an island, and then continuing their journey. After they had purely run out of food, they resorted to cannibalism among the dead, which is hippocratic since they had purely avoided certain islands in hopes of not meeting cannibalistic natives. The story goes through their hardship out at sea, and compounding man’s evil nature versus the basic instinct to survive. 
The novel 
Ana and her mother have just arrived in America from Argentina to meet her Father. Starting her first day at a new school, knowing very little english. 
Evie Thomas believed in love once. That was before she began having visions of couples’ relationships, from sweet beginnings to heart breaking ends. Trying to understand what is happening to her, Evie stumbles upon La Brea Dance Studio, a ballroom dancing studio. There she meets X. X is the complete opposite of Evie and yet between time spent in the studio preparing for the competition X pulled her into, and the time they spend together alone, Evie can’t help but start to fall. She knows all too well that nobody escapes love unscathed, yet she finds herself wondering if Love is worth the risk in the end. 
The novel opens describing how Quan, an African American young boy, ended up in prison after an encounter with a, now dead, white police officer. Quan will admit that he was present for the shooting and with several members of a gang that was involved, but he knows for certain that he did not fire a gun. The book follows Quan’s letters to Justyce, the main character in the author’s previous book. After a series of interactions, Justyce, a pre-law student at Yale, agrees to help defend Quan in his upcoming court case. 
The Bane Chronicles is a book of 12 short stories following warlock Magnus Bane as he navigates the world throughout several different centuries. Magnus, being immortal, has faced much grief for his flamboyant style and has often found himself in the midst of chaos, but still approaches the world with a positive view, looking for friends and love.
If you want an in depth, character building story with romance and war, and decide to read She Who Became The Sun, be prepared to have to think. This book is truly amazing as it builds the world of China during the rise of the Ming Dynasty, but it definitely takes time to read. Parker-Chan is an amazing writer, but it definitely takes time to work through the book. While I found the premises of the book extremely interesting, the actual attention grabbing abilities of the book left me wanting. Now I am normally a YA reader and this was much more out of my comfort zone, but I still want to feel like I can’t put the book down. I didn’t feel that with this book.
The Bridge is about two teenagers, each with their own problems, preparing to jump off the Washington Bridge. There’s Aaron, a gay musician who just wants people to listen to his music, and be noticed. And then there’s Tillie, who feels her father hates her for some reason as he will not speak to her, and is jealous of her little sister, who is great at everything, she was also ghosted by her boyfriend, Arnim. The story goes through the scenarios of what would have happened if Aaron jumped and Tillie didn’t, if Tille jumped and Aaron didn’t, if they both jumped, or if neither of them jumped. It shows each of their lives and how they changed after this moment, and formed an unlikely friendship between the two of them.