The girl with no chocolate. :(

The Girl with No Shadow
Joanne Harris

In Chocolat, Harris's internationally bestselling novel, we were introduced to such a vivid, loveable cast of characters: Vianne Rocher, a white witch, her precocious daughter Anouk (and Anouk's imaginary pet rabbit, Pantoufle) and the cast of suspicious villagers they eventually win over with their blend of spells, charm, and chocolate. I have to admit I loved that book so much (and the movie!) and when I heard Harris had penned a sequel, I was equal parts dismayed and overjoyed. Because it couldn't live up to the first book, right? But I knew I'd have to read it anyway.

Four years after the events in the village of Lasquenet, we find Vianne and Anouk living in the neighborhood of Montmartre, in Paris, under new identities, after an "accident" that happened some years before. They've changed not only their names, but their personalities: Vianne, as the widow Yanne Charbonneau, has lost most of her sparkle. She's working at a chocolate shop, but she no longer makes her own delights. And she no longer practices her other craft: no household gods, no spells, no pagan celebrations. She's cut her hair, and dresses like a dowd, with her main goal to be to go unnoticed, for the sake of her daughter Anouk and the baby, Rosette, who has some strange developmental problems. Anouk is on the brink of becoming a sullen teenager, who is haunted by her part in the accident, and is starting to distrust her mother. It's into this jumbled situation that Zozie De L'Alba appears, wearing a pair of fabulous red-velvet heels, and sets their lives ablaze with drama. Zozie isn't her real name anymore than Vianne's is Yanne. And Zozie, too, is a witch: though whether she practices white or dark magic remains to be seen. Slowly, she brings the mother and daughters out of their shells, but for what purpose? Is she just being friendly--trying to help--or does she want something from them, something that will cost them their lives? The "girl with no shadow" can be any of these characters: anonymous Yanne, changeable Zozie, lonely Anouk, misunderstood Rosette.

I could not put this book down. It's been a while since I've read Chocolat, so I was afraid at first that I wouldn't remember enough to really appreciate this book, but it turns out, I could. (Though if you haven't read the first, you might be confused in places with this one). I couldn't turn the pages fast enough, but at the same time, I didn't want it to end, so I sort of made myself go slowly. Reading this book is a little like peeling away layers of onionskin. Something is revealed--another thing that changes the first--another thing, another thing. It's such a deep story and so entertaining.

I'm always so impressed when authors manage to make magical things seem happenstance, but Harris does it, here. It goes down so easily, the spells, the signs, the scrying, so that it seems a part of not only these characters', but all of our lives. It's the tone I think Audrey Niffenegger must have been going for in Her Fearful Symmetry, but couldn't quite manage: a complete reimagining of our world, with a more magical one woven seamlessly into the cloth. Maybe it's because Joanne Harris's own mother was a self-avowed witch (and a chocolate-maker, which helps with the realistic descriptions of Vianne's work).

It never feels that Harris picked up this story again for the sake of her success, as it does in a lot of sequels. It feels like a completely organic growth of the characters' lives. It makes sense that one day little Anouk would revolt at the way her life can change with the wind, that she would one day try to emulate her mother's craft. It makes sense that Vianne should struggle with her own gifts, and try and refine them or prune them back.

And the character of Zozie is so fascinating, so alluring, that we fall a little in love with her with the rest of them, though we can tell pretty early on that it all might end in disaster. I pretty much knew how this book would end up, only having read Harris's previous one, but I was still intrigued as to how we would arrive at that point, and the journey was entirely enjoyable.

And we get such a nice idea of Paris, of Montmartre, which is my favorite neighborhood in the city, and it's an interesting, modern-day view. That's really a gift, and Harris really knows her setting, and knows how to create a sense of place that is timeless. And the descriptions of the chocolates! I was craving each one as I read about it.

This is a darker book than Chocolat was, it's sinister, and I have the feeling some people won't like that, but it didn't bother me. My only gripe was that each character narrates each chapter in the first person, and the shifts are not clearly marked, so that in some places I had to read a few lines before I figured out who was telling this part of the story. But even that, I wouldn't change, because we get to go so deeply into each character's head, and this story wouldn't work without seeing those hidden motivations. So it's a small gripe, not a large one. And I wouldn't change another thing about this book, except maybe I would have read it closer to Christmas if I'd known so much of the story revolved around the holiday.

In short, I can't wait for them to make a movie of Shadow. The first one was so perfectly cast that I couldn't help but seeing all the characters as they were in the movie as I read about them on the page: Juliette Binoche as Vianne, the incomparable young actress Victoire Thivisol as Anouk. (And yes, if they use the same cast Johnny Depp will make an appearance.)



Rating: 5 of 5 stars.