Book Review: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr might be this year's 'Book I'm glad I read that I'll never read or think about again'

Delving into seriously critically acclaimed fiction should not be done brazenly. You must prepare yourself. Think about who you are, what it means to read a book. Should you be worthy of an author's words? What's your tolerance for making it through miles of endless prose to better yourself?

    All the Light We Cannot See won the Pulitzer Prize and then went on sale at Audible. It tells the story of a little blind French girl swept up in the invasion of Nazis while also telling the story of a Nazi with a gentle heart and a way with radios. There's also a cursed diamond. Along the way we learn the power of the human spirit, the triumph of the will, and how it's just a small world after all, right y'all?

    Beautifully written, wonderfully plotted, delightfully charming, and adverbly modifier, of course this book won awards. It is great, top to bottom. I just wish I gave a shit.

    As the lives of these children intertwined, I found myself really rooting for them to get together. Knowing all the awards this book received, I knew they would not. This dichotomy of thought forced me to realize on a moment by moment basis that what I was reading was pointless and futile. Despite all odds, our heroes would not have a happy ending or one that worked on irony or a clever twist. Because of real life and the exacting nature of the prose, I found myself deeply respecting the author and thinking "what's the point of all this?" I can read about real people being tortured and surviving and dying, I don't need you to invent them.

    If you love this book, I get it. But I can't recommend it, even on audio at 2x speed, because there's too many people out there whose lives ended as a blip of history. Find their story, be they your grandma or uncle or neighbor. I can't praise something that indulges in the banality of wasting time to die.