book review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
So it has come to this: we now have a quaint best seller of a book about World War 2. And the story, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is touching. Set on a real island off the coast of France, but a part of England, the island was English territory that Germany invaded. (A little known fact is that Japan also invaded some US islands off the coast of Alaska during the war. Read more by clicking this sentence.)

I read the story a few months ago and really enjoyed it. The story is told through letters sent back and forth between the members of the society and an author with writer’s block.

After 9/11 happened I wondered when we would have assimilated the event in our psyches enough to allow us to write or talk about what happened lightheartedly. I suppose this is one thing I find interesting about this book. The author grew up during the war and wrote this book towards the end of her life. So I suppose it took her 50 years or more to get to that point.