Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society was written by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. The story beings in 1946, the year after WW2 ended. The novel consists of a series of letters sent back and forth between the protagonist Juliet and the inhabitants of Guernsey Island in the English Channel. During the war Juliet wrote humor columns to help lift the spirits of the British people during the war. Now that the war is over Juliet wants to write a book that is more serious in tone but is struggling for a topic, until one day she receives a letter from a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. During the war Guernsey was occupied by the Germans and was cut off from all communications with England and the  European continent. The members of the literary group write her about their experiences during the long years of occupation. The stories are both funny, sad, extraordinary and at times unbelievable.

The first word that comes to mind when thinking of this book is cute. Second, would sadly have to be contrived. Cute and contrived...not such a good combination. The letters that make up the book are at first a really great idea, 'oh how clever! The whole book is a series of letters". Then you get half way through the book and you can't keep track of who is writing the letters anymore, and honestly you really don't care anymore. I loved the characters, but I couldn't keep any of them straight. I would read a letter and think it was written by one person but find out 5 pages later that I was confused and the plot is all jumbled up. Sometimes I just felt like chucking the book across the room I got so frustrated. Also, no one in real life writes with as much emotion and detail as the characters do in this book. They must have amazing memories to be able to describe exactly what the weather was like, and how the person looked at them, and what they were wearing, and every single word that came out of their mouths or that they even thought!  This book would have been so much better if it wasn't all in letter format. It was a cute idea but in the end it just didn't work, or at least it wasn't realistic at all. I suppose I am probably the only person that thinks bad things about this book, apparently most people love it.  So if you are willing to look past the cutesy-fake-contrivedness ( I know that isn't a word, but I'm using it anyways) of the letters go for it. Some of the stories that are told by the islanders are truly heart wrenching and are worth mucking around in all the letter reading.