From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Mary Ann Shaffer,

Annie Barrows

Start date: August 1, 2019

Finish date: August 31, 2019

Discussion: 2020 Monthly Reads

Why we're reading this: August 2020 group read for " book about a book club"…more
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2020 Monthly Reads

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What Members Thought

Apr 11, 2011 Lindsay Russo rated it liked it · review of another edition

My grandmother gives me books. Not just here and there, but sends me boxes and bags of books from Maine each time my mother visits her. First editions from the nineteenth century. Paperbacks she read last year. Catalogues from the 1980’s that talk about health or poetry. It is difficult to watch her give her things away – even though it scares me how much my things define me.

More so that then approach of her passing, though, is that all of these books force me to face the fact that I do not rea My grandmother gives me books. Not just here and there, but sends me boxes and bags of books from Maine each time my mother visits her. First editions from the nineteenth century. Paperbacks she read last year. Catalogues from the 1980’s that talk about health or poetry. It is difficult to watch her give her things away – even though it scares me how much my things define me.

More so that then approach of her passing, though, is that all of these books force me to face the fact that I do not read like I used to. Between the two jobs, eight billion emails from my students, puppy, life, etc., I have moved from reading a book a night to three trashy magazines and one magazine of importance a night. As someone who has always identified themselves as a reader first and foremost, it is a scary thing to realize that I am so far from myself. I understand people change, but I can’t tell if I have changed or if I am just hiding from cleaning out my library, which has become a catchall for everything that doesn’t have a place in my life. Brian even promised me a comfy reading chair if I would just clean it out. I just leave the door shut and read about someone doing something mundane at a movie premiere.

Saturday morning, I was supposed to do yard work. Instead, I picked up one of the many books I have sitting everywhere in my house, just out of Brian’s eyesight (he hates clutter; I guess, everyone hates it, but I like interesting piles and things to inspire me everywhere)… The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, has a title that makes me want to give the book to my mother. It is a little too twee and chick-lit-esque. But, I sat on the couch with my sleeping puppy (oh, my fluff) and dove in.

My instant reaction was to shut the book immediately when I saw it was in epistolary form. I like letters, but real ones from real people. Letters as a device, like narration in 2nd person, is rarely done well and frequently annoying. However, I pushed through by bias and slowly was charmed by the relationships developed between Juliet and the people who survived the German occupation of Guernsey during WWII. The whole plot is improbable – from the immediate connections between Juliet and the survivors to the stereotypical religious protestors and the passionate and angry suitor who drives Juliet to… - but, the characters come to life not in their own letters (we all know we put on a mask when we write, especially depending on audience), but in the descriptions others make of them. The book balances the line between history, relationships, and melodrama quite well, but it would have been a less gimmicky choice to see it with prose adding depth to the people we discover in these letters.

In the end, it is a very bittersweet read. Not on my usual list, but still worth the time. It is made even more bittersweet, it seems, but the tale of its authorship. I can’t imagine putting the time and effort into birthing a book, and then having to walk away and let anyone, even a family member, as Mary Ann Shaffer did, take over. Her death seems so connected to one of the major plot lines of the book; what does one do when the heart and voice of their family is suddenly gone?
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Jan 24, 2014 Jane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I took this book with me to Los Angeles where I went for my son, Josh's wedding, thinking that it would be light, delightful. And yes, it was, but honestly, I found it powerful as well. I had no idea that England's channel islands were affected so deeply by World War II, or that they were occupied by the Nazis since Germany hoped this would be a place to prepare for an invasion of England. The story is told through letters, and the central character, Juliet, sends most of them. Her relationship ...more

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Dec 13, 2010 Judy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, wrld-war-ii-related, bookgroup

12/19/10
I picked this up at Atticus Books in New Haven (an independent bookstore that I do my best to patronize whenever possible :-), expecting it to be light reading. While it was interesting, lively, and well-written (and has the interesting structure of being a novel completely in the form of letters/correspondence), it was also moving and serious at times. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

1/20/15 I reread this for book group last month, and was again impressed by the substance and writing. I did a l ...more

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Apr 25, 2018 Marlene rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own-paperback, historical, read-2018

I can't decide if I want to give this four or five stars, but it was such a delightful surprise to me that I'll give it five. I loved the characters, loved the format, and even though I thought part 2 suffered a bit in its last half, the book on the whole was just wonderful. (4.5) ...more

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May 25, 2017 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

A sweet book, and I learned a little history, too.

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Sep 05, 2018 Sam rated it liked it · review of another edition

A very sweet book set in the aftermath of WWII. Ties up neatly. If you don't like meet-cutes and which handsome guy should the self-deprecating beauty of a heroine choose, don't bother. ...more

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