"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 12, 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."

Acquired via PaperBackSwap. (Unabridged on 13 CDs; read by Zach Appelman)

Marie-Laure, blind from a young age, lives with her father in Paris. He works at the Museum of Natural History, specializing in locks and and the possessing the ability to create puzzle boxes for Marie-Laure, as well as small models of their house & city for her to discover and explore with her hands without the benefit of vision. When Germany occupies France during WWII, Marie-Laure and her father flee to a relative's house outside Paris, taking with them what may be one of the most valuable & powerful gemstones of the world. Meanwhile, in Germany, young Werner has grown up in an orphanage with his sister. He displays an unnatural talent for being able to build and repair radios, and soon finds himself being groomed as a prime candidate and member of the Hitler Youth. Eventually, Marie-Laure and Werner cross paths, but not necessarily in the way you would expect.

This is a beautiful and yet another take on events during World War II. I would have enjoyed more dialogue to carry this story along, but as other reviewers have noted, the beautiful writing is usually enough to keep the reader engaged. The story alternates back and forth between the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, and I wanted to keep reading to find out how their lives would intersect. I am anxious to watch the upcoming TV miniseries now, to see if the adaptation does the book justice.

Sending off to PBS member. Enjoy! :')

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