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books2010-12-19 10:02 pm
to_love_a_rose) wrote in books2010-12-19 10:02 pm
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is a book that kept popping up on my radar. Someone at my local bookstore recommended it after I purchased a book of essays and letters by Charles Lamb, but I didn't really pay a lot of attention to the suggestion since I was swimming for books to read at the time. Then Amazon kept suggesting it to me, and finally I saw it for 99 cents at a thrift store and I caved. I finished it in two days, reading close to two hundred pages the first day and finishing it up on the second.
The basic story is that Juliet, a successful writer, falls into an unlikely friendship via letters with a man from the island of Guernsey, who tells her about the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Other stuff happens too, but that's the general gist. Many, many literary references follow. What's cool is that some of the letters inspired me to look up authors that I haven't read before.
The novel is set just after the end of WWII in the UK. It's written in an epistolary format, which is tricky to pull off, and there was one place where I felt the author stretched credulity a bit in order to accommodate her format and her plot. For the most part, however, the format worked well. The characters are likable, and manage to avoid being put neatly into the box of "quirky British villagers" even though they are quirky and British and live in a village. One or two of the characters (okay, one in particular) did seem a bit overdone and not quite well rounded, but for the most part the characters were believable. Also, I did not hate the precocious four year old, which is rather impressive.
The subject matter being what it is, there are bits that made me cry like a little girl, but it's not a sad book. It managed to hit the right note between tragic and fluffy, acknowledging the suffering that has happened, but not keeping the characters mired in it. So, I would say the book is worth reading if you like low-key British novels, or WWII history, or the epistolary format.
Speaking of low-key British novels...the last two books that have really made me happy have been The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. Based on those two, anyone have any recommendations for books in the same vein. Sort of low-key, easy to read, non-melodramatic romances?
The basic story is that Juliet, a successful writer, falls into an unlikely friendship via letters with a man from the island of Guernsey, who tells her about the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Other stuff happens too, but that's the general gist. Many, many literary references follow. What's cool is that some of the letters inspired me to look up authors that I haven't read before.
The novel is set just after the end of WWII in the UK. It's written in an epistolary format, which is tricky to pull off, and there was one place where I felt the author stretched credulity a bit in order to accommodate her format and her plot. For the most part, however, the format worked well. The characters are likable, and manage to avoid being put neatly into the box of "quirky British villagers" even though they are quirky and British and live in a village. One or two of the characters (okay, one in particular) did seem a bit overdone and not quite well rounded, but for the most part the characters were believable. Also, I did not hate the precocious four year old, which is rather impressive.
The subject matter being what it is, there are bits that made me cry like a little girl, but it's not a sad book. It managed to hit the right note between tragic and fluffy, acknowledging the suffering that has happened, but not keeping the characters mired in it. So, I would say the book is worth reading if you like low-key British novels, or WWII history, or the epistolary format.
Speaking of low-key British novels...the last two books that have really made me happy have been The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. Based on those two, anyone have any recommendations for books in the same vein. Sort of low-key, easy to read, non-melodramatic romances?