Just Finished: The Girl With No Shadow by Joanne Harris

I actually finished this post several months ago, but forgot to publish it!!! This much awaited sequel to Joanne Harris' breakout Chocolat, finds Vianne and Anouk in the neighborhood of Montmartre in Paris.  If you haven't read Chocolat,  go and buy a copy.  Although the movie adaptation is great, please don't think you can skip reading the novel and jump right into the sequel.   Even though The Girl With No Shadow can be enjoyed as a stand alone book, you really need to see where Vianne has been, to appreciate how the story unfolds.

Joanne Harris, as usual, delivers a novel that delights the senses, full of magic and subtle playfulness, and of course, chocolate.  If you haven't read Chocolat, don't read further, because the end of Chocolat truly influences the tone and direction of Girl.  

At the beginning of Girl, Vianne has reinvented herself as the widow Yanne Charbonnau, and runs a small chocolate shop in Paris.  It seems that Vianne has truly given up her old life, giving up her old identity and practices to ensure the safety of her children, Anouk and Rosette.  Vianne truly believes her life is on the right track, but the deliciously bohemian Zozie D'Alba pushes into their life like a force of nature, and Vianne is drawn slowly back to the old ways.

The Girl with No Shadow is an interesting continuation of Chocolat, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it.   It lacks some of the obvious sparkle and fun of Chocolat, but it has a dark, almost sinister charm to it.   The tone of the book seems to directly reflect not just the inward changes in Vianne, but also the change of setting, from a small village to a bustling neighborhood in Paris. Not my favorite of Joanne Harris' books, (that goes, hands down, to Coastliners) but a good read, overall.