This summer, you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing a copy of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. It was on Barnes and Nobles’ “Best Sellers” shelf since May. Everyone at the beach had his or her nose in this book. Such popularity is uncommon for a book over 500 pages. It’s not the typical lighthearted beach read – Anthony Doerr’s novel is about the lives of two separate kids before and during World War II.

Doerr gave his book this title as a reference to all the wavelengths humans cannot see on the electromagnetic spectrum, specifically radio waves, which play a huge part in the story. It’s also a reference to all the stories we don’t typically hear about from World War II, such as the stories of ordinary children. According to Doerr, “the title is intended as a suggestion that we spend too much time focusing on only a small slice of the spectrum of possibility.”

One of these children is a boy named Werner Pfennig. Raised as an orphan, Werner is sent to the most prestigious school in Germany in the years immediately before the start of World War II after he proves himself to be exceptionally bright.

In the neighboring country of France, a blind girl and her father are forced to flee Paris and move to a small ocean-side town called Saint-Malo. There, she lives with her uncle, suffering from PTSD after fighting in World War I.

All the Light We Cannot See is an incredibly poignant book, every line packed with meaning. Similar to the invisible stories of ordinary children buried in history, there is meaning buried in every sentence Doerr writes. There is significance in every detail, and Doerr doesn’t bother explaining it to the reader. It’s up to the reader to piece together the plot as the story unfolds.

In fact, the whole novel is wrought with emotion. Doerr doesn’t tiptoe around the hardship of war. Instead, he chooses to face it head on, bluntly stating certain deaths. Of course, just because something is blunt doesn’t mean it can’t be artful. And Doerr proves it.

Though he writes death bluntly, he saves elegance for the fragile moments, such as the blind girl’s moment alone at the beach or the German orphan escaping his reality by listening to a radio broadcast of a French scientist. Descriptions of such delicate moments allow the reader to see the beach that the French girl can’t, and hear the radio broadcast the German boy listens to.

At 500 pages, All the Light We Cannot See may be a commitment. But it’s a commitment worth making.