The Lollipop Shoes — Joanne Harris

Book two of the Chocolat series.   I really enjoyed Chocolat. so this is another one of those sequels in the unenviable position of having a lot to live up to.   Did it?   Well, it didn’t do too bad a job.

I would say my only real criticism of it was that it went on for far too long.   Chocolat was a mere 359 pages whereas The Lollipop Shoes is 594 pages, and while reading it one gets the feeling that it could have been trimmed down a fair bit and the story would have benefited.

As i say, that’s my only real criticism.

I certainly enjoyed knowing that there are two further books in this tetralogy, as one can’t be certain how this is going to end.   Is Vianne going to be left high and dry with the further two books dedicated to her fighting back, or is Vianne going to triumph here and now and we’ll move on to some other tale in the next book?   We’re also not even sure who is going to be Vianne at the end of this book as it’s mostly about identity theft and Vianne becoming the target of an identity thieving witch: can chocolate witchery save the day again?

At the end, the only real judgement one can pass on this book is: am i going to read Peaches for Monsieur le Curé?   Not straight away.   As i said, this went on for a bit too long and i have a few other books i’ve been looking forward to reading, but Peaches for Monsieur le Curé is queued up on my Kindle ready to be read at some time in the not too distant future.

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