The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: A review
Written by Marie Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, ‘The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society’ is set in 1946, and London is still quaking from the aftermath of the Second World War. In the midst of it, a writer, Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a man on a faraway island called Guernsey. Juliet begins to write to him regularly as she is enamored by his and his friends’ stories of what they did when their tiny island, a part of the British soil was occupied by the Nazis for five years and how their famous literary club was formed (it involves lying and a roasted pig). She begins to find inspiration in writing a book and decides to go to Guernsey herself, a decision that alters her life’s course forevermore. This book is written in epistolary style — in the form of letters.
The characters in this book are essential storylines: they make the book what it is. Each has a unique voice that immerses us into the narrative. Each character and member of the Potato Peel Pie Society recounts sometimes barbaric and sometimes quite funny events that happened to them during the German occupation in Guernsey to Ashton by sending her letters.
It immediately takes you to Guernsey, even if you’ve never heard of it before. The world building is fantastic and clear. There were times I was snorting and giggling uncontrollably, something you don’t do a lot while reading historical fiction, obviously.
“I am a grown woman — mostly — and I can guzzle champagne with whomever I choose.”
― Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The running theme of the book is simply this: the magic of books and reading. Reading is what made a lot of members of the Potato Peel Pie Society wake up in the morning and start the day, knowing it just as easily might be their last. It looks back at the atrocities that the Guernsey island had seen during the Nazi occupation and how they lived their lives among the German people for the next five years; the wreckage and ruination it caused, how it tore up so many innocent families and tortured and enslaved people and deprived them of food (and how they only were allowed to grow potatoes to the point that pies could only be made potato peels).
“We clung to books and to our friends; they reminded us that we had another part to us.”
― Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Like the name suggests, ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ is a sweet, heart-warming wartime recollection about a small island not really talked about alot but that had absorbed and witnessed just as much in history. It leaves you teary and fuzzy at the same time and I highly recommend it.
Also, do I need to mention I gave it 5 Stars on Goodreads?
