Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
 Still waiting August 7, 2010
tanara
I am still waiting for the book to come, nearly 5 weeks now, and no sign, when I receive it I'll review
 Perfect!! July 10, 2010
N. Manning (Ontario, Canada)
Reason for Reading: I've wanted to read this since the minute it came out! The title is the first thing that grabbed my interest then of course all the positive reviews. Somehow the book just kept getting pushed further down my tbr pile until finally it rose to the top when it was randomly selected as my final book for the Random Reading Challenge.
I'll keep this review short since there are hundreds, make that thousands of reviews already online. I feel like I may be the last book blogger to read this book! As anyone who reads my reviews regularly might have guessed: how could I not have absolutely loved it! Everything I enjoy in this type of book is present here, historical fiction written as a collection of letters with a cast of eccentric characters. Perfection! I just love epistolary novels and they read so fast it is almost impossible to put the book down. Each and every single character was a dear and getting to know them through someone's letters somehow seems so personal and insightful. I loved everyone though I must say Dawsey and Isola were my favourites.
As to the historical content, while the book takes place one year after the war it often feels to be in the here and now as the letters are full of reminiscences of wartime experiences. I must say that even with all my reading of World War II, I had not known that the Channel Islands had been occupied. It didn't surprise me, tactically I can understand how the situation happened, but I'm surprised it has never been mentioned in my previous reading. It was an eye-opener for me and I'm now quite interested in finding out more about the occupation and the experiences of people from different points of view.
A delightful little book, that is a quick read with dramatic, tragic, romantic and comedic moments to be found throughout. A truly beautiful book not to be missed!
 boring June 24, 2010
book browser
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was boring. It was insipid from the beginning, but I read up to the end hoping things would heat up, but no, they didn't. The book is in the form of letters written by the characters to one another. The absent Elizabeth McKenna dominates the story like some invisible but potent deity and all the characters accordingly pay homage to her. Elizabeth McKenna is a flat, one-dimensional and unbelievable character. One cannot but think that all her friends must be vastly exaggerating her multifarious talents and adventures afetr her arrest. McKenna's escapades are more in the line of superheroes like superman or spiderman. It is incredible that an ordinary woman could have been as good, great and gutsy as Mckenna. Not a single negative characteristic is attributed to her throughout the story. And all this for someone absent! Forgive me for thinking this story seems like a myth and/or legend about a fabled goddess. All the other characters too are very idiosyncratic and peculiar in their own ways, adding to the disbelief. The only (morbidly) interesting passages in the book were the raw descriptions of Nazi atrocities, which were extremely disturbing. The rest seems like a fairy tale, and a poor one at that.
A rich, expressive, realistic story June 11, 2010
Sandra Beatie (Orillia, ON, Canada)
I have purchased 3 or 4 copies of this as gifts for friends. All comments have been very positive--"I don't really like the style of telling the story through letters but in this case I really enjoyed it" says one friend. Others have said that they read it all almost at one sitting. The two authors are to be congratulated for an excellent work. It helps, of course, if you are ike enough to remember the time period and its effect on your own life.
A must read for fiction fans... April 16, 2010
BookChick (Simcoe, ON Canada)
It is January, 1946. London, England is just beginning to rebuild after the Second World War. Juliet Ashton is on a book tour for a book that she wrote during the war meant to lift the spirits of those who read it, and is looking for inspiration for a new book, one completely different from her first. When she receives a letter from a stranger, Dawsey Adams, a man who lives in Guernsey and is in possession of one of her old books, she begins a friendship through correspondence with him and the entire Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. She discovers how their literary society came to be, and she forms lasting friendships in the process.
I can't even describe fully how much I loved this book. It is comprised entirely of letters and telegrams between the characters in the book, a format that I love, and I couldn't devour it fast enough. The characters are what made the book so engrossing, though. Juliet is strong-willed and a talented writer, and her enthusiasm was contagious. Sidney, her close friend and one of the owners of her publishing company, was protective of her and caring. The people that she meets in Guernsey were people that I would all have loved to meet in real life- big-hearted, determined to put the horrors of the war and Occupation behind them, yet warm and loving. The war scarred them, but didn't change them beyond recognition.
Another aspect of the book that I loved is that it showed multiple sides of the war. It wasn't black and white- Germans= bad, everyone else= good. There were a few times when those who lived in Guernsey described a German soldier who was kind-hearted, or compassionate towards those that they were essentially imprisoning. It would be so easy to villanize every one of them, but those in Guernsey were able to show compassion to those who deserved it.
Despite the many heart-wrenching scenes, the saddest part of "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society" was that it ended. It had it all- a compelling story, a new perspective on the war, humour, and romance. I was also saddened to learn that Mary Ann Shaffer passed away in February 2008, shortly after her debut novel was released. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who would have loved to read more from her and her niece. Ultimately, this is one book that every fiction lover should take the time to read.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
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