Lovely Little Shelf

The Book: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

The Story: The setting is London, a few years after World War II.  Juliet had a newspaper column during the war and immediately after she published a book that got a fair amount of attention.  Through letters, she is keeping in touch with her agent and her best friend (who just happens to be her agent’s sister).  One day, she receives a letter from a man she has never met.  He is from an island called Guernsey and he is writing her to get some books shipped his way since they are pretty secluded.

Through his first letter and then a handful of subsequent letters, Juliet finds out just what has been happening on Guernsey since the start of the war and she is totally drawn in.  In an attempt to take their minds away from their German occupation (and as a result of a pretty crazy situation), ten or so of the islanders have started a club where they eat potato peel pie and talk about literature.  As the war went on and the situation got more dire, the group became more than a book club.  They became each other’s support system.  They helped each other through some horrible moments and stood by each other during tough times.

As Juliet learns their story, she is totally intrigued.  More members of the society start to write to her and she develops some deep friendships.  After a year or so of this she decides to make a trip to Guernsey.  She has an idea to turn their story into her next novel, but has to interview islanders and experience their lives in order to write about them.  She goes for research but ends up finding people there that she really loves.

What I Thought: I was so excited to read this book.  I had had my eye on it since it came out so when my mom brought it to me after she read it, I was stoked.  I love books that are written as diary entries or letters when they are done well and after all the hoopla surrounding this book, I assumed that it was done well.

It wasn’t.

The real problem I had was with the voices.  There are letters flying around like crazy here.  Juliet to her editor, her best friend, all these islanders, and then her editor, her best friend and all the islanders back to her.  The authors didn’t change the voice at all.  They all sounded like they were written by one person and it totally ruined the effect.

What sucks is that had this story been just written like a novel, I think that I would have been crazy about it.  I loved the idea of all these islanders banding together and making it through a tough time… with the help of books I loved Juliet’s character and how she was confused about men and passionate about the islanders and kind of all over the place, but in a charming way.  I liked the little bits of wit that popped up every so often…

But because of the medium used, I found myself skimming just to get to the end and be done with it.

Bummer.

Conclusion: Meh. You can skip this one I think.  There are much better novels-written-as-letters and MUCH better World War II novels.  Read one of those.  This is mediocure at best.