Book of the Week : January 7 2011

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Spoiler Alert!

One of my friends picked this book for our book club. I was nervous; it's not my usual read. But I have lived in England, understand the effect of WWII on the people there, and enjoy history. What made this book even more daunting before picking it up was the way it was written in a letter to letter form.

But I made a commitment to my book club to read it so I did. Overall I enjoyed it.

The main character Juliet, I didn't love her as much as everyone else did in the book. I wasn't connected to any one person, and I barely felt connected to the cast because there wasn't much detail to the characters. I think that had to do with the way it was written. The letter format was hard to keep straight who was talking to who, they all kind of started out sounding the same.

But still, I felt it was a good book. I guess because I could relate and enjoyed some of Juliet’s opinions on things. She was witty and immature at times. Tongue and cheek, "Was there a Burning Bush? Defense of Moses and the Ten Commandments....Word of God or crowd control???"

You could tell the author was a book lover, to the point I was worried about this book, was this a book for book lovers or readers who love to read books? She eased up on the references and "love of books" stuff, and got going with the story 20-30 pages in.

The war stories did endear me a bit to the characters and like Juliet I wanted to know more about Elizabeth.

You could totally tell when the authors changed, I think I liked part 2 better then part one because of that, but felt the ending was rushed.

Some things that really bothered me, I can't believe they let Kit stay/live with a visiting stranger (Juliet). The islanders barely knew her.

Sydney's sexuality. I don't care what sexuality he was, but during that time period I doubt he'd be so open with it, and OK with it being passed around in letters.

The end was really short, and completely out of character. It went from short letters, to journal like entries, to a log book?!

Over all I was torn between 3 and 4 stars. I did enjoy Juliet's thoughts on marriage "Lonelier spending my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with" , and the humor Qoute that pushed it to 4 stars for me. "...Humor is the best way to make the unbareable bearable..."



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