“All the Light There Was” by Nancy Kricorian takes on a common topic: Nazi occupation of Paris but with a unique twist: the Armenian immigrant experience. In this novel, the reader meets Maral Pegorian, an innocent 14 year-old girl in 1940’s Paris. Maral lives in a cramped apartment with her family. Many Armenians and Jews live just like her in her Paris neighborhood. She soon loses school friends and neighbors as the Jews are rounded up. Those that are left in the neighborhood are fearful and hungry but not too scared to fight back in their own little ways-hiding a Jewish child, spreading pamphlets and showing up for rallies. Maral experiences death first-hand, as well as, her first love. When the boy she loves, Zaven, is imprisoned with his brother, Maral is distraught as the families grieve. When WWII is over, those that have survived have their own losses to deal with as they try to resume “normal” life.

Kricorian’s tale is based on history and gives the reader a glimpse of the Armenian experience in 1940’s Paris. As you read this descriptive tale, your stomach will ache with hunger and you will be convinced that Maral’s nightmares are you own. I could not put this book down. Once I started reading; the story was immersive like quick sand!