Search

Search only in certain items:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Annie Barrows, Mary Ann Shaffer | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry
6
8.0 (21 Ratings)
Book Rating
Far too lighthearted & frilly
Considering this is centred around the German occupation of Guernsey and deals with details of prison/work camps, it's far too lighthearted a read.

It takes serious topics and although parts of the book do highlight the serious and disturbing topics of the war, it sandwiches them in between massive sections of saccharine sweet fluffy happiness. Its a bit much. Juliet and her friends are fairly endearing characters for the most part (except for the aforementioned fluffiness), and I did enjoy the way the book is written entirely in letters. Its just a shame it doesn't concentrate more on taking the story a little more seriously.

Although I haven't seen the film yet, I'd be surprised if it isn't slightly better than the book. And it's not often I say this!
  
WO
Wars Of The Roses
4
4.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I think the title of the book is rather misleading - it's not really about the Wars of the Roses per se. The blurb on the inside of the dust jacket tells me it's a book looking more at the impact of this civil strife and the political, social and military situation. It does, as it claims, include many primary sources; 'English and European writings, diplomatic correspondence, personal letters and propoganda', but it is the promised 'detailed interpretation based on modern research' that I must have missed while reading this! To me this was a series of unconnected original documents linked with short paragraphs of text by Lander. In many places the book is so bogged down with inumerable footnotes that the flow of the text is completely lost.

Nice idea, but it doesn't work here.