I loved the style of writing in the potato book. It took a little getting used to - sometimes I got characters mixed up if their names began with the same letter (just at the beginning). What I thought was interesting was this: when I read a book and it's written in the narrative format, there's usually a description of the character presented. In the PB, there was some of that, but it was more subtle, done in a roundabout way. It's hard to get a mental picture in your mind of what they look like, how old they are, etc. That's ok - that adds to the enjoyment of it. But it makes it much more difficult to predict, which is nice too - things aren't so obvious. If you sense it's going to be a love story, or at least have some of that in the plot, it's harder to 'see' the character so I found it harder to think of who the main character might end up with (sorry... i finished reading it a week ago and I can't think of the main character's name!) For example, I wondered at first if she might like / love Sidney at first (or whatever the boss's name was). The rich, controlling jerk boyfriend was described in much detail, but I didn't think they would stay together. I wondered about Dawson, or Darcy or whatever his name was, but I had pictured him so much older until later in the book, when you did get a little bit of a description of him. When he sent her that first letter, I thought maybe they would fall in love, then I changed my mind when I envisioned him older.
So - sorry I've forgotten everyone's name, but I think the 'letter' style of writing makes the book hard to predict but fun to try to predict.
It could also be quite funny, in a British sort of way (which is always very funny), but when the details of the war were described, it was very emotional and poignant.
I loved the book; hated for it to end. I was so disappointed when I realized that it was the author's first and last novel.
