Title: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society
Author: Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Rating: 4.5 stars
This is a book I have been wanting to read for awhile now, the name in particular making an impression. So when I saw there was a movie coming out, it moved up on my TBR list. I really enjoyed this book as I always love learning about history. There is a lot I don’t know about WWII so it was interesting finding out more about the Channel Islands and how they were occupied by the Germans.
The book is written in an epistolary format, consisting of letters back and forth between Juliet Ashton, a young author and journalist in 1946 London and several of her contacts and friends. The war is over and people are trying to rebuild their lives after the destruction the war left.
Juliet receives a letter from a man that lives on the Island of Guernsey, one of the mall islands located in the English Channel between France and England. Dawsey Adams acquires a second-hand book that once belonged to Juliet. Her name and address was located inside the cover and he decides to write to her about he enjoyed the book. This soon gets them on the topic about how much reading books helped the residents of Guernsey cope during the five year occupation of the Germans.
Dawsey mentions how they started a literary society and soon Juliet is corresponding with many of the other members of the society and their experiences during the war. She discovers that originally the society was created as a way to explain a broken curfew but soon turned into a for people to make friends and discuss the love of books.
Juliet wants to write a book about the experiences of Guernsey during the War and eventually makes her way to the Island to meet everyone in person. There she meets among friends and quickly becomes entangled in their lives. She definitely gets more from the experience than she would ever have expected.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I liked the format as the letters really added a personal touch to the story. I also loved getting to learn about the history as this was something I was unaware of before. It told an amazing story and I always appreciate a book about fellow book lovers. I did find it ended a little abruptly and would have like a little more but I was still happy with how everything turned out.
A Universal Truth 