Title: Ella Minnow Pea
Author: Mark Dunn
Genre: Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Reason Read: Book Club
Rating:

My Thoughts

Knowing ELLA MINNOW PEA wasn’t my typical read, I wasn’t sure how I’d like it. For the most part, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought the story was a clever idea. It was a lot of fun to see how the language evolved as a new tile fell off the statue. Not only was it fun to see this change, but it was also frustrating to see the council members become more and more controlling.

Near the end when almost all of the letters had fallen off the statue, I felt like I was playing a game of Mad Gab, trying to figure out what the characters were writing. It was fun and a little bit funny.

The book was written in an epistolary style as the characters write each other about the changes happening on the island. I thought this style was very conducive to telling the story well. However, the style got old after a while. When most people write, they write more formally than they speak, especially those concerned with language like the citizens of Nollop. (I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that the Nollopians actually speak the way they write.) Anyway, because they all write so formally, I felt like I was reading one voice throughout the entire novel. I had a hard time picking out who was writing the letter until I read the close.

Because of the lack of character development and the use of overly flowery language, I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I think I would’ve if it had been written in a non-epistolary style. I do think it’s worth a read just for the sheer fun of seeing how the language evolves under the extreme circumstances the citizens find themselves in.