Book Review
To make up for having to miss meeting my all-time-top-5 favourite author, Joanne Harris (currently sitting at number 3 and closing in on JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis) I have decided instead to give my thoughts on her latest novel (how very generous of me.)
So...
The Lollypop Shoes!
I DID love it in so many ways. Joanne Harris' writing style always has me from chapter 1 to epilogue and this one especially as it continues the story of Chocolat's Vianne Rocher, a character who reminds me nothing of myself but of so many people I love.
I continue to be impressed with the way in which Joanne chooses her words so carefully in all her stories.
Delicately, she establishes Vianne's current situation, her expanding family (as, by the end of Chocolat, it was pretty clear Vianne was carrying Roux's child) and, slowly but surely, unravels the story that brought about such a change in Vianne's attitude to magic.
Contemporaneously with this is the introduction of Zozie, who, from the beginning, is clearly a villain. But how and to what extent would this villainy affect Vianne? Well, Zozie's plans do not come to fruition until the closing pages and throughout the story you are tantalised with tidbits of ambiguous information - so frustrating!
I was rather apprehensive as this episode delves more deeply into the realm of occult than Chocolat did, but it is clear that the ways in which they are being used here are, for lack of a better word, 'bad' and are in no way endorsed, so that was reassuring.
As always, the end of the book was too much and I couldn't put it down until I was finished - at 1:00am this morning. Well worth it.
Everyone must read it but only after reading Chocolat of course... and perhaps Five Quarters of the Orange.
So...
The Lollypop Shoes!
I DID love it in so many ways. Joanne Harris' writing style always has me from chapter 1 to epilogue and this one especially as it continues the story of Chocolat's Vianne Rocher, a character who reminds me nothing of myself but of so many people I love.
I continue to be impressed with the way in which Joanne chooses her words so carefully in all her stories.
Delicately, she establishes Vianne's current situation, her expanding family (as, by the end of Chocolat, it was pretty clear Vianne was carrying Roux's child) and, slowly but surely, unravels the story that brought about such a change in Vianne's attitude to magic.
Contemporaneously with this is the introduction of Zozie, who, from the beginning, is clearly a villain. But how and to what extent would this villainy affect Vianne? Well, Zozie's plans do not come to fruition until the closing pages and throughout the story you are tantalised with tidbits of ambiguous information - so frustrating!
I was rather apprehensive as this episode delves more deeply into the realm of occult than Chocolat did, but it is clear that the ways in which they are being used here are, for lack of a better word, 'bad' and are in no way endorsed, so that was reassuring.
As always, the end of the book was too much and I couldn't put it down until I was finished - at 1:00am this morning. Well worth it.
Everyone must read it but only after reading Chocolat of course... and perhaps Five Quarters of the Orange.