A review by silver_lining_in_a_book
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

funny hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-paced

3.0

 

Did I tell you I finally found the perfect page-cutter? It's a pearl-handled fruit knife. My mother left me a dozen of them, I keep one in the pencil cup on my desk. Maybe I go with the wrong kind of people but i'm just not likely to have twelve guests all sitting around simultaneously eating fruit.

Oh, where to start? I am so disappointed that I did not love this as much as so many other people did. In fact, the sequel that was attached to my copy of this novel made me feel more than the original novel did. The epistolary style of storytelling was a lovely touch overall, but the long time jumps between letters, the occasionally missed out correspondences and the very abrupt (in my opinion) ending impeded my enjoyment. Moreover, I did not realise how short the original novel was as I suddenly found myself reading the sequel, trying to figure out how I felt about the original text's conclusion. Finally, I want to add that - perhaps because English is not my mother-tongue - some of the humour just did not click with me like it did with many other readers unfortunately.

It is certainly a worthwhile read, particularly as the length makes it perfectly bingeable, it just did not work for me.