Book Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I avoided reading this book for a long time mainly because I thought the title was really dumb and sounded cheesy. But eventually I gave in because it had such good reviews. I really should have gone with my gut on this one because I really didn't care for this much at all.

I actually tried to like this book but it was really just so-so. In fact the only reason I finished it was because I didn't have any other audiobook to switch to during my commute. The first half of the book was almost unbearably boring. I admit, the second half of the book was much better, but still nothing Earth-shattering. My main problem was I didn't care for the main character Juliet at all. I found her to be annoying, one dimensional, and dull. The other characters are the ones that made the book tolerable, but seeing as how most of the back and forth letter writing was between Juliet and these characters, there was a lot of drivel to wade through. I think the author should have taken her own book writing advice and written a story about Elizabeth and left out the boring parts about Juliet and her dating life. How many more books do we need about past-their-prime women and their "happily ever after" romances that they never thought would happen? It's tired and predictable.

One thing I did like about this audio version were the voices of the characters. It was well done. And I especially liked that one of the women's voices sounded just like my great grandma.

Overall I'd say this is a book that could easily be skipped. There are better written, more original ideas out there to be found.