Annie Barrows

I am so sad now. I just finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and I am crushed. Not because of the story or because of the ending. It is because all these wonderful people I have just met and fallen in love with are gone. How can they be gone? Friends don’t just go like that, they stay and visit with you. They listen to your stories like you have listened to theirs. If I start the book again right now will it they be back or will it just be a great story now?
I love how the whole book was told by someone reading their correspondence. The letters were wonderful, not short and terse like emails can so often be but beautiful letters or sometimes just notes. Now it would have all been done via a phone and would be lost forever. The beauty of the moment lost with a call waiting beep and the “can you hold on, I have another call”. This was the beautiful storytelling of a beautiful story. It captured a time and a place and the people so much I want to go there now and meet them and see where they live. I am sure Guernsey has change immeasurably since the time this story takes place and the people would have changed too. I still want to go and meet them. I want to talk to them and go to the literary society meeting if they would have me. I will miss them.
I guess you can tell if a book was excellent if you want to go back and not be in the “real” world. I will wait a bit, visit with some other literary friends and then go back and visit with them again. Even if it is only in a book.
… (mer)

Buddy read with my gal pals Heather and Erin!

Wow, what a book! I have to admit that I did not expect this book to be this good. But, I just loved the humor mixed with the seriousness, not to mention the gutwrenching part towards the end when the truth about a certain character in the book was revealed. Also. I'm not a fan of books made up by just letter, but this book. Well, I loved reading all the letters and telegrams.… (mer)