Book Review: "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"

It's a mouthful, isn't it?

This book by aunt/niece team Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is about a writer in WWII-era London named Juliet Ashton. She's on the search for a subject for a new book and can't seem to find inspiration anywhere.

She randomly receives a letter from a man named Dawsey Adams who lives on the small English Channel island of Guernsey. Dawsey has come into possession of one of Juliet's old books and the two start up a friendly correspondence. He reveals that he's a member of the GLAPPPS (how I will refer to it from now on, thank you very much). Juliet wants to know more. The next thing you know, all the members of the society are sending her letters.

The characters in this book are all charming, even the unlikeable Mark Reynolds, who tries to sweep Juliet off her feet. Their stories of their lives during German Occupation are harrowing, fascinating and heartbreaking. Juliet thinks so, too, and wants to share them (eureka!) in the form of her next book.

Juliet goes to the island to meet the people she's made friends with via snail mail. She becomes one of their own. In the end, she finds out that when you're not looking, you find the thing you were searching for. (And it's usually not what you expected it to be.)

My only qualm about this book is the format. Every single word is told by correspondence: Letters, telegrams, notes, found diary entries. It's too gimmicky for me. The worst part was that as soon as I'd get consumed in one person's voice and point of view, the letter would end and one from a completely different character would be next. It was like starting all over. It was jarring.

How does a group come to call themselves the GLAPPPS, you might ask? Guernsey because it's where they are. Literary because they invented a book club (and then had to really become a book club) when caught out after curfew by German soldiers. Potato peel pie because when all the rest of the food was gone, potato peels were all they had left to eat.

It sounds a lot more pleasant without the explanation, doesn't it?