Book Review: The Girl with No Shadow by Joanne Harris (Chocolat #2)

After Chocolat, which was charming, whimsical, and subtle in its writing, reading its sequel The Girl With No Shadow was disappointing. I ended up skimming the majority of the novel because neither the characters or the writing could hold my interest for long. 

The writing style in The Girl With No Shadow felt contrived and devoid of the charm present in Chocolat. It seemed like the author was trying too hard to make a worthy sequel, and it was too evident in the writing style. Breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader happened a lot in this book, which I don’t remember being in the first novel. The characters in the sequel are constantly saying “you know” to the reader in the narrative. At first I thought it was only in Zozie’s chapters, but it started to appear in all of the POVs. It didn’t flow well with the rest of the writing, which in itself had diminished. 

As for the plot, I had almost no interest in Zozie’s character or her manipulation of Anouk, which was half of the novel. So I skipped nearly the entirety of her chapters, only skimming to understand the basic plotline. Which basically means I skimmed until Roux’s name came up. I found Roux’s character interesting in the first book, so I was glad he was in the sequel, but his prominence in the novel felt contrived as well. There must have been some development between Vianne’s and Roux’s characters between the first and the second novels, because at the end of the first novel, the author hinted at a relationship between Roux and Josephine, but during The Girl With No Shadow, Roux was an integral character and apparently Vianne’s soulmate. It felt like a huge leap. They didn’t have a particularly strong connection in the first book, and then, whoa, Love. He was the voice in Vianne’s head when he wasn’t there, and then the moment he appears back in her life after four years, the author wants us to believe they are deeply in love. Maybe something happened behind the scenes between the novels, but the romance didn’t feel natural or believable. 

I am not planning on reading the third book of the series. Although I don’t think there’s a Zozie in Peaches for Father Francis, I’m worried that the writing style will take an even deeper dive, and I feel like the characters’ story has been exhausted.