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

Jamie gave me this book over the summer after she read it. It got lost in my bookshelves until last month, when I found a local book club that was reading it. It's my first visit to this book club so I am writing this before my head is filled with other people's ideas.


The is an epistolary novel - that is, a story told through a collection of letters with no other narratives. Typically, this style frustrates me, but I enjoyed it in this case. It made me reflect on what we express these days through email and texting compared to letter-writing. I email as much as the next person but this book made me long for letters, too.

I found it unusual that it was written by two authors. Theafterward explained that one author is the niece of the other, and the younger one took over when the older one became to ill to finish the book. The niece commented that it was easy for her to take over since the story was really written in her aunt's voice.

The story is about a woman named Juliet who is an author in England in the mid 1940's. She takes an interest in Guernsey, which a quick Google showed me was a British island off the coast of France. Guernsey was occupied by Germany during WWII and Juliet becomes entranced by a small community of people who remained there during and after the war. After corresponding with them for several months, she takes a trip to meet them, in hopes of finding fodder for her next book.

Many of the the letters in the book are to or from Juliet - she corresponds with many of the Guernsians as well as her editor, a best friend, and a love interest. There are some other ancillary characters who also have letters in the book, which I think gives the book a lot more color and dimension. While Juliet and her friends are not unreliable narrators, they do take a particular point of view and it was interesting to see small glimpses of others.

Shamefully, I have not read any Bronte or Austen. This book piqued my interest in that a little bit though. Juliet recommends some of their books to her friends in her letters, and I believe there would be some parallels in her story and their characters' stories. I was also interested in how enthralled in the love story I aspect of the book I could get without there being much lasciviousness at all. I'm not dependent on racy scenes to interest me in a story, but the love story was completely G-rated and yet also completely compelling. Another feature I think I'd find in a Bronte or Austen book.

This was a surprisingly enjoyable book that I'd heartily recommend.