Customer Reviews: Read 79 more reviews...
 A Guernseyman's perspective October 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Coming from Guernsey, and having family who lived through the Occupation, I thought that this book might give me a different perspective on what life was like after the Occupation had ended, a period that is often overlooked even here on the island. Styled as a series of letters between a London-based author, her friends and a group of Guernsey book aficionados, I was afraid that I might find it hard to engage with any of the characters emotionally as in my experience first-person letters can't convey the same sense of emotion that can be gained by well-worded, third-person prose. Fortunately, the letters are written sometimes seriously, sometimes comically, and this helped me to form some attachment to the characters, perhaps not to the extent I would have liked but enough to keep me interested, though not entirely engrossed, in the story.
As a novel, this book is definitely one for people who like their literature simple and straightforward, to a point that it could easily be a year 12 reading project. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, with so many authors these days throwing big words around as if to marvel their audience at how clever and talented they must be to be using so many big words with such abandon. `The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society' has no such airs, being easy on both the head and the eyes with its easy manner and gentle vocabulary, and makes for both a light and enjoyable read.
However I have two fairly strong criticisms of the book, the first being that the author seems to have got all of her information from only one or two sources and doesn't appear to have actually been to the island or spoken to anyone who lived through the Occupation. The names of Guernsey characters (and, to an extent, locations) aren't quite `right'; on more than one occasion I cringed when reading an improperly spelled surname or an address I know has never existed. Of course these are things the majority of readers would never pick up on, and certainly wouldn't affect their enjoyment of the book, but if you want an accurate and thoroughly researched Occupation novel, my advice would be to look elsewhere.
My other criticism is that the majority of the letters are either from the author to her England-based friends or vice versa, with only the minority being written by members of the eponymous Society. As such, on only a few occasions do these members get to recount events from the Occupation and to talk about what life was like here under German rule; a large portion of the book is taken up with fairly superfluous chats between the author and her English chums about literature, love and any other old tat that comes to mind. If you were to remove from the book all references to Guernsey, the Occupation and the war generally, I sincerely doubt that you'd lose more than 25% of it at the most.
It could be argued that this book was never intended as anything other than an easy read for a wet Saturday afternoon and if that's true then it truly is mission accomplished. But having had Occupation stories rammed down my throat from an early age, I found the whole thing to be little more than a fairly cheap cash-in on a relatively under-served part of British history. There's no denying that some of the stories that are recounted do make you feel for the characters and their plight, but even with these this book merely skims the surface and gives very little idea of how bad things truly got.
If you're after nothing more than a book before bedtime, then you can pick this one safe in the knowledge that it'll be money well spent. However, if it's a book on the Occupation that you're after then there are much better ones (both novels and reference works) out there and I would recommend seeking these out instead. They might not be as easy on the palate, but I guarantee they'll give you a much better idea of what life was really like in Guernsey, both during and after the war. And to be quite honest, I find it more than a little disappointing that a whole swathe of readers will assume that the book accurately portrays Guernsey folk and life during the Occupation when all it does it take a bunch of people who could be from any town in the U.K. and adds a few references to Guernsey locations.
 An excellent read September 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Hailing from the Channel Islands myself, I was very excited when I spotted this book on my way through Gatwick recently and snapped it up. I wasn't disappointed. Made up of a series of letters between the main character and a group of islanders on Guernsey, it tells of the hardships and struggles endured during Guernsey's occupation by the Germans during WWII. Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Highly recommended.
Review of The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society September 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Review by my Mother for whom I applied for this book.
Who could resist reading a book with the title `The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society'
It's an easy read as the story is made up of a series of letters between a writer and a mix of characters who lived in Guernsey when it was occupied by the Germans in WW2. They build into a tale of people who come together in the face of adversity and through their love of books support each other through the hardships of that time in the war. First one and then another begin to correspond with the writer, Juliet, until she can no longer hold onto her curiosity and visits the island to meet her literary friends.
I found that such small pieces of the story, as they are in short letters, took too long to build into a full story and I like a book that sustains me for many pages. It was difficult to remember who was who at times as there were quite a number of people who turned up in some of the letters but it was then a while before they surfaced again. However, it all came together for a happy ending. It was rather unsatisfying and didn't grab me but was nonetheless an amiable, amusing and quick book suitable for a holiday or leisurely, relaxing read.
 Recommended September 15, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As Amazon don't have a proper synopsis of this book, I thought I'd quote the publisher's blurb...
"It's January 1946, and writer Juliet Ashton sits at her desk, vainly seeking a subject for her next book. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - by chance, he's acquired a secondhand book that once belonged to Juliet - and, spurred on by their mutual love of Charles Lamb, they begin a correspondence. When Dawsey reveals that he is a member of the 'Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society', Juliet's curiosity is piqued, and it's not long before she begins to hear from the other members. As the letters fly back and forth with stories of life in Guernsey under the German Occupation, Juliet soon realizes that the society is every bit as extraordinary as its name. There's gawky Isola, who makes love potions to sell along with her vegetables; Eben, a fisherman with a passion for Shakespeare; Will, erstwhile ironmonger and the creator of the famous potato peel pie; and Dawsey himself, a farmer with a shy manner and a tender heart.
Most poignant of all are the memories of Elizabeth, the founding member of the society, who fell in love with a German officer, saved a starving prisoner, and was sent away to a concentration camp, leaving her child behind. Sustained by books and one another, the islanders have battled the bitter hardships of World War II. Juliet, entranced by their stories and their spirit, decides to visit Guernsey to meet her new friends properly."
I enjoyed this book a lot, and was surprisingly not put off (like I thought I would be!) by the way the story is told through nothing but forms of correspondence. It you want to read a moving tale of the power of friendship, books and love, then you can't go wrong with this feel-good book. Recommended!
the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society September 14, 2008
What a lovely book. I did not want it to end. It was well written and gave a small insite to the conditions that the Gernsey people had to put up with during the occupation, while telling very human stories that on the whole made me smile. I would recommend it to everyone.
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