After hearing so many good things about it, I’ve finally read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (being late to popular books is starting to be my thing). It really is a lovely novel and it made me wonder why I kept putting off reading it. Well, I know why – I was afraid it wasn’t going to be as good as I heard. It’s a relief to be proved wrong!
[Warning, mild spoilers ahead because there are some things I want to discuss]
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is an epistolary novel set in the aftermath of World War II. Juliet Ashton is the brains behind Izzy Bickerstaff, a comedic column, and she’s just finished a highly successful book tour. As she tries to find a suitably serious subject to write, she receives a letter from Dawsey, a man in Guernsey who owns one of her old books. The two of them begin a correspondence and Juliet makes friends and learns more about people she’s never even considered, culminating in a trip to Guernsey.
To be honest, I thought I knew where the book was going at first. There was Markham Reynolds, the self-confident (too self-confident) love interest, and I was quite sure that he was going to be a rival to Sidney, Juliet’s publisher. Sidney gave me Mr. Knightley vibes, so I was a bit shocked to learn that I was completely wrong and that Mark’s rival is actually… Dawsey! For some reason, I had this impression of Dawsey as an old man and finding out that he wasn’t was a bit of a surprise.
My inaccurate first impressions of the characters aside, I absolutely loved this book. The epistolary format was novel but well executed, and I had a good sense of all the characters. I thought the uses of letters and telegrams also helped to emphasise how a character was feeling at a particular moment.
As for Juliet, she was charming and I liked her the moment she opined that “I don’t want to be married just to be married. I can’t think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can’t talk to, or worse, someone I can’t be silent with.” She’s definitely a very sensible and sympathetic heroine, and I rooted for her to be happy (alone or with someone) from the start.
And since Juliet is a writer and this is about a literary society, the love of books all throughout this story. Each person that writes to Juliet will include a piece of information about what they read and why it helped them through the war, and I feel that it really speaks to the powers of the written word. Books aren’t just luxuries, they’re necessities for the human soul. Even if the plot was nothing more than people writing about their war experiences to Juliet, I would have enjoyed this.
If you’re a lover of books and you haven’t read this book yet, read it now. Don’t be like me and put it off. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.