Book #75: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Funnily enough, I read about this book in another book that I just finished (Dear Mr. Knightley--the narrator mentions it as one she loves), and the title sounded wacky enough that I remembered it and wanted to look it up. I loved it! It was another one that I plowed through in less than a day, because I couldn't put it down. This is (yet another) WWII novel, but it focuses on the German occupation of the Channel Islands (the English islands in the British Channel--specifically Guernsey). It's an epistolary novel--I love those--with letters from and to Juliet Ashton, an upcoming novelist in immediately-post-WWII London who is trying to decide what her next book will be about when she stumbles upon the people of Guernsey and their literary society. She begins writing these people and getting to know them, and goes down there to visit and decides to write her book about them and their stories from the war. I love how the stories told (to and by Juliet) in the letters are so random but sweet--like how this small "literary society" was formed as a cover to keep themselves from getting in trouble with the Germans for being out after curfew--and how there were some random, crazy characters who you can totally imagine living in this quiet island society forever.

I thought this was a cute story with a lovely historical tie-in, and I really did like the epistolary style for this book and the way it focused on Juliet and her personality. I did not love the ending, how abrupt and immediate it was. I was hoping that the romance would have more of a build-up and more reason for the two to get together--there wasn't enough suspense!