All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel by Anthony Doerr

"..mathematically speaking, all light is invisible...".  this is just one part  of the fascinating lectures Werner and his sister Jutte are able to listen to on their hidden radio.  Orphaned in prewar Germany - brilliant Werner dreams of a life as a scientist while he strives to protect his  practical sister.  Meanwhile, in Paris, Marie-Laure, blind at a young age, wanders through the Natural History Museum soaking up nature's wisdom through her fingertips and the guidance of her father.  Twice he builds perfect scale models of the neighborhoods they live in for her fingers to create an internal map and encourage her independence.  Hitler's Germany will set  both Werner and Marie-Laure on paths that will connect in fatalistic ways.  This is a story of the devastation of WWll that took place beyond the battlefields and the death camps - the small towns that offered sanctuary and resistance, the people who believed the lie and then suffered the consequences or traded the lie for a greater dangerous truth.  The language is often poetic but the bad guys are just as ugly.