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Drama, Romance |
Once in a while we read a book that will make you excited and some might even make you cry. While The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society made me feel me both, the one feeling that I can associate with it more than the above is warm fuzzy.
I can remember the times that I just stopped reading the book just to hold those warm feeling to myself a little longer. Can we get on with the review shall we?
About The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Book Name: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Author: Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
Genre: Fiction – Drama, romance, Historical
Characters: Juliet Ashton, Dawsey Adams, Markham V. Reynolds, Jr., Susan Scott, Sidney Stark, Sophie Evans,, Elizabeth McKenna, Isola Pribby, Kit McKenna, Adelaide Addison, Eben Ramsey, Amelia Maugery
Setting: London and Guernsey, The United Kingdom
Plot Summary of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Set in the post World War II London, we meet Juliet Ashton, an aspiring author who receives a letter from Dawsey Adams. Dawsey a resident of Guernsey chances upon her address on a book by Charles Lamb, that she had previously owned and requests her help in securing more of Lamb’s books from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
As any bookworm should do for a fellow bookworm, Juliet helps him with those books and in return asks more about their book club’s odd name. Thus begins a series of correspondence between them and slowly she begins talking to and about the other residents of the little island. We also hear about Juliet’s past and her loyal friends Sidney and Sophie.
Juliet is looking for a story for her second book and fancies the idea of writing about the residents of Guernsey, a town that was German occupied during the war. But how would the residents react to her digging into their pasts that they are trying to move on from? Would all this heart ache for a book be worthy?
You will have to read on The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society to find out more.
Book review of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society written in the form of a letters deals with several heavy subjects like German occupation and their control over the residents, slavery and concentration camps, poverty and hunger. Despite these strong and depressive backdrops, the residents’ love for reading and for each other kept me hooked.
As I have repeatedly talked about in this blog, I love reading books with strong sub plots and interesting side characters and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society turned out to be a jackpot in this regard. I loved the quirky characters, even those who were not physically in Guernsey (hint: I adored her).
Bonus fact: The author Mary Ann Shaffer wrote about 80% of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society until she was too ill with cancer to continue. She then enlisted her niece Annie Barrows to complete the project.
Things that worked for me
- I liked the well written sub plots and characters.
- The writing was easy and filled with many humorous situations.
- While romance is a part of the story, it did not end being the sole theme, which was positive for me.
Aside from all these reasons I felt I had a kinship with the characters who were readers, accidental or not, like us and I think there should be lot more books about bookworms. Don’t you agree?
Things that didn’t work for me
- The letter format worked mostly but it kinda didn’t do justice when it comes to romance.
- I wanted to read more about the relationship between Elizabeth and Christian.
- I felt the book was a tad bit long winded and it could have been reduced by at least 50 pages.
Bottom – line
Did I say I loved the movie version as well? If you are interested in a drama or historical fiction with the world war II as the main backdrop then The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society might be the one for you.
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Non Fiction |
Y’all by now should know that I have a weakness for World War II stories. My curiosity towards Holocaust and the tragedies related to that has lead me to some good books and several hours of random history lessons on the Internet.
And I was offered by Ishai Kalinovsky to read an ARC of his memoir I’m not from Around Here in exchange for a review, I had to accept it even though I don’t read many memoirs generally. How did it turn out? Read ahead to know more.
About the book
Book Name: I’m not from Around Here
Author: Ishai Kalinovsky
Genre: Non-Fiction – Historical, Memoir
Characters: Lola, Stashek, Hannah, the narrator Sam, Emile.
Setting: Poland, Germany, and Israel
Disclaimer: I received this indie book from the author in exchange for an honest and fair review.
Plot
I’m not from Around Here reads like a diary of the author Ishai Kalinovsky that talks about the experiences of his Jewish family right from the time of the World War II in Poland. His mother is a labor camp survivor while her dad was a street fighter in Warsaw. The couple meet immediately after the end of the War and escape to Germany to win what was looted from the Jews.
I’m not from Around Here is not about the war but its aftermath on Jews and the other survivors. The narrator’s father, Stashek is an unscrupulous businessman who would do what he has to provide for himself, his mistresses and his family. He takes up to the black market business and has a great influence on the society by being fearsome.
When his parents break up his mother Lola takes up another man and gets pregnant, which is a total no-no in their orthodox neighborhood. Lola was a timid, weak girl when she entered the labor camp. But her firm belief in her guardian angel helped her survive all the adversities in her life.
Meanwhile, the narrator’s estranged father and stepfather are arrested for smuggling cars into the country. How the narrator and his family survive the final blow of being strewn across the country forms the rest of I’m not from Around Here.
My thoughts
Being a memoir we get to take a glimpse at what really happened in the camps but that is just a small part in the book. I sort of guessed the story would end up before the young ones grew up and am glad it ended so.
Even though the narration is by the young Ishai Kalinovsky through out, I’m not from Around Here has multiple point of views which work in some places and not in others.There were too many characters mostly minor that do not contribute much to the story, which may be partly owing to the genre.
Usually I don’t read many memoirs because they would hard for me to relate to. But maybe since I’m not from Around Here had multiple POV and the narrator was a young boy I was able to relate and I ended up liking the characters.
Bottom – line
I’m not from Around Here is quite long with about 400 pages but it was totally worth the read and it left me emotionally drained for hours.
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Drama, review |
I had been hearing rad reviews about The Book Thief for a while now from everywhere, thanks to its movie namesake. I knew I would like it, as it has been repeatedly suggested by like minded friends as well, but was holding back from jumping into for want of time.
Finally as soon as I got my mobile with a larger screen, I feigned illness to stay up in bed for a longer hours only to read. And I was not disappointed at all.
Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Genre: Fiction – Historical
Main Characters: Liesel Meminger, Hans Hubermann, Rudy Steiner, Rosa Hubermann,Max Vandenburg, Tommy Müller, Ilsa Hermann, Frau Holtzapfel
Setting: Molching, Germany,1939
The Book Thief is a slow moving poignant story of a young, skinny German girl Liesel Meminger who lives with her foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann at 33, Himmel Street. The story has layers of intertwined lives filled with emotions that makes me feel bewildered not knowing where to start. What better, if not easier path to start than from the beginning.
The narration is by none other than Death, personified, which makes it all the more interesting. The story begins with the narrator saying that He had visited the girl thrice in her life time. The girl and her brother were given up to her foster parents by her mother, but en route to meet them her brother dies in the train. Liesel and her mother arrange for his burial in a nameless town, where she picks up a book dropped by one of the grave diggers – that’s her first book thievery.
She is entrusted with Hans and Rosa, who takes care of her as their own. She particularly gets very close to her Papa. She grows up rich with memories and love, though they lived at one of the poorer part of the town and struggle to make ends meet. Rudy Steiner, her best friend and partner in crime, and Liesel, alongside the other street urchins steal food often from the richer neighborhoods. Her Papa teaches her to read and write painfully and slowly so that she can read the book she had stolen. Lives continue as peacefully as it can at a poor German community, where Nazis are already hunting down Kommunists and Jews.
The Book Thief balances between the history and cruelty of the Nazis and the personal lives of people whose lives the war shatters. Liesel’s family gets to harbor a Jew in their basement, a secret she even keeps from Rudy. Nazis want to recruit Rudy into their programme and his father refuses to send his son into the ill fated troop. Death continues to visit our little book thief, revealing too much might make it a spoiler. You should definitely read this book!
I should start off by saying how much I loved the simple yet powerful language used. Too many quotable quotes to remember and not to worry, I have shared them for you below the review. Though I got to know that Death visited her thrice earlier in the story, I couldn’t keep the book down till I finished the last paragraph since I wanted to know what happened next.
I loved the friendly banter between Liesel and Rudy as much as I loved the relationship of Hans and Rosa. Who could not admire Hans for his kindness, benevolence and integrity despite the hard times they faced! Every single character, be it small or not, from Max, Ilsa to even Frau Diller who was a Fuehrer loyalist was etched perfection.
Even tiny moments left a lingering impact in my mind, like Illsa offering notebooks for Liesel to write her own thoughts, which incidentally saves her life and Max’s sketches extolling the power of the words and its role in Hitler’s rise. Nothing but Markus’s words could have let me justify the suicide of the son of Frau Holtzman, who had already lost her other son to the war.
The way that Death was personified, not just as the evil taker of lives but as a being that “who gently carries off the souls of those who have passed” spun sheer magic for me and I clearly was hooked.
I had to hold the best for the last, don’t I? I simply adored Rudy. Be it his crazy obsession about Jesse Owens that he blackened himself head to toe, or his loyal friendship that he always accompanied our book thief even though he knows she was lying about hunting the Mayor’s house for food. I couldn’t stop grinning every time he asked for a kiss. And to know he wasn’t going to survive the end earlier on, made him more irresistible than before. Rudy Steiner you are the romantic guy that I need 😉 Augustus Waters, who?
Now few (or more) quotes that I loved from The Book Thief. Feel free to share them 😛
“Please, trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that’s only the A’s. Just don’t ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.”
“No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment. Nothing changed the fact that she was a lost, skinny child in another foreign place, with more foreign people. Alone.”
“Not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children “
” is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?”
It’s probably what I love most about writing—that words can be used in a way that’s like a child playing in a sandpit, rearranging things, swapping them around. They’re the best moments in a day of writing—when an image appears that you didn’t know would be there when you started work in the morning.”
I cannot stop gushing over The Book Thief yet, to anyone who would listen. Yes it is a little slow but powerful words make up for that. I am yet to see the movie, so I am not yet ready to have your “movie or book?“question but do fire away all your other questions.
Have you read The Book Thief, what are your thoughts on it? Let me know.
