This was a birthday gift from my Aunt.

From Amazon:
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

To the finder:
Welcome to bookcrossing! You have "caught" what we call a "travelling book." It is now your book to keep or to read and pass on to another reader and follow where the book goes. This is done by journal entries, so I really hope you'll journal it, if only to tell me you found it. You can do this anonymously, or sign up (free and private, no spam) and also be able to follow the book as it travels! If you do, please consider listing me, megami-no-ushi as your referring member.

Taking to the February "Giants" meeting - this was a breathtaking book that jumped back and forth between two children/teenagers under the behemoth of World War II. I just loved it.

To the finder:
Calgary has an active group of BookCrossers that meet to swap books and discuss book crossing every second Saturday of the month at 11am at Cravings Market on Fairmount Drive SE. We always love to meet new crossers, so please join us any time you like!

Picked up this book at the Calgary BookCrossing February meet-up. My mother said this was a good book and I should read it, so I'm finally listening to her.

All right, my mother was right. This was a good book. I liked the short chapters because it's a great way to suck you in. You're just left wanting more. You see both sides of the war through the characters and you really feel for them when bad things happen.

Passing on this book to the next reader at the Calgary BookCrossing March meet-up.

Picked this up at the March Calgary Bookcrossing meetup.

This book was in the middle of my TBR pile, but when I heard that it won the Pulitzer prize for fiction, I figured I should read it sooner to get it back into circulation.

I am so glad that I did.

The writing is beautiful beginning to end. I felt for every character and couldn't put it down.

Bringing to the Calgary May BookCrossing meetup.

Picked this up at the May meet-up of Calgary BookCrossers at Cravings Market Restaurant.

This book was quite heart-wrenching. There were times when it was difficult to read on.

Ultimately, I am glad that I read on and I can see why this has been an award-winning book.

Releasing at the October meet-up of Calgary BookCrossers, held at Cravings Market Restaurant.

Brought this home from the October BookCrossing meeting.

At times this was difficult to read but I am glad I kept at it. A wonderful book.

At times this was difficult to read but I am glad I kept at it. A wonderful book.

Taking this to the June bookcrossing meeting to be enjoyed by the next reader.

Picked up at get together

This book wasn't at all what I was expecting. It took a lot longer for the girl and boy to meet than I thought it would. The myth around the jewel was interesting, I liked how it carried throughout the story. Many different topics were covered within the story, which gave a good perspective of many different areas of life in different places and for different people during WWII. I like that it gave perspective of different people on different sides of the war. The only scene that felt out of place to me was the one with the boy's sister at the end of the war - while it matched the serious and difficult tone of the rest of the book, after he had left home it didn't really follow her at all, so the inserting of that scene didn't flow a smoothly as the rest of the transitions. I'm not sure if it was a topic the author had researched and wanted to cover, or if it was just to demonstrate that she survived. Other than that, I thought the writing style was very good, and the story pulled me right in.

Thanks for the interesting read.

Taken to get together

I brought this book home from the November meet up. One of two only. That is amazing.

Note - do NOT listen to this book as I started to and was quite confused. PIcked up the book to figure out what was going on. Problem was they didn't say what time period. So - decided to just read it. Had to put it down before Christmas as I got upset about what was happening at the Hitler Youth education centre.
So glad I got back into it as it swept me along. The characters were interesting and the telling of the stories of the two children and how the war shaped their lives, plus "seeing" things from the perspective of a blind person in such stressful situations, was powerful.

I am hoping that I am well enough to go to the January meetup at Cravings to send this book on to it's next reader.

Marie, A blind French girl and Werner a German radio repairman during the German occupation of France in the Second World War each have their own story running through the book.
Marie’s father is genuinely wonderful father and attempts using various strategies to teach Marie to be as independent as possible by building models of the cities in which they live. Every year for her birthday he gives her a treat along with a handmade puzzle box for Marie’s to solve how it opens. He works in the museum which is desperately attempting to preserve the French artifacts such as art and collections of Kings and Queens. One such artifact is a “cursed” gemstone highly coveted by the Germans.
Werner, an orphan, has the complete opposite life and growing up develops a reputation as an excellent radio repairman and is taken into the German training facilities to capitalize on this skill.
The story covers how the French were forced to live during this occupation and how the war affected them to their treatment even when they are not Jewish, living conditions, and living the bombing that took place. It goes into the French resistance attempts to thwart the Germans by giving coded messages by radio to the allies trying to free the French which is where Werner fits into the story.

Picked up at this month's Calgary bookcrossing meetup. Building up my TBR mountain!

I couldn’t finish this. I got about a third of the way in and realized that I dreaded picking it up because I just kept waiting for bad things to happen to all the characters. I just skipped to the ending after that.

Will be brought back to Calgary bookcrossing and handed off.

picked up at the June meeting

Enjoyed this story, and liked how it slowly brought the two main characters together. Foolishly thought for one chapter there might be a happy ending for some characters - oh yeah, right - World War II story, forgot.

Picked up at the December meeting, taking home to read. We had 12 BookCrossers in attendance.