All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, artfully combines the pacing and action of an adventure novel with the gravitas and thematic tones of a poem.
At six-years-old, Marie-Laure has lost all of her eyesight and lives with her father in France during the rise of Nazi Germany. Leading a completely different life, Werner Pfennig is a German orphan living with his sister with a proclivity for mechanics and radios. As the two characters grow up on opposite sides of World War II, their worlds collide in a way that leads them to become unlikely heroes.
The real problems faced by the characters and the eventual outcome of the novel are a change from many other World War II period pieces in that they show the hope in resistance movements as well as the human nature of both sides of the war rather than simply villainizing the Nazis. Although the plot can be dark at times, the ultimate picture Doerr paints is one of hope and faith that there is good in the world, even when it cannot be seen.