The Lollipop Shoes (Chocolat 2)

by Joanne Harris

Paperback, 2008

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Publication

Black Swan (2008), Edition: Black Swan 2008, 592 pages

Description

Fiction. Literature. HTML: Since she was a little girl, the wind has dictated every move Vianne Rocher has made, buffeting her from the small French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes to the crowded streets of Paris. Cloaked in a new identity, that of widow Yanne Charbonneau, she opens a chocolaterie on a small Montmartre street, determined to still the wind at last and keep her daughters, Anouk and baby Rosette, safe. Her new home above the chocolate shop offers calm and quiet; no red sachets by the door; no sparks of magic fill the air. Conformity brings with it anonymity�??and peace. There is even Thierry, the stolid businessman who wants to care for Yanne and the children. On the cusp of adolescence, an increasingly rebellious Anouk does not understand. But soon the weathervane turns . . . and into their lives blows the charming, enigmatic�??and devious�??Zozie de l'Alba. And everything begins to cha… (more)

Media reviews

The New Yorker
Harris writes with verve and charm.
2 more
Chicago Sun Times
A sensual writer with a keen historical perspective.
Sunday London Times
"A mouthwatering experience"

User reviews

LibraryThing member neverlistless
At first I was confused and thought I missed a novel or two after Chocolat - but with the help of LT I realized that this was, in fact, the second installment of said series. The novel was published in the UK as Lollipop Shoes.

This is the continued story of Anouk and Vianne after they left the
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village of Lansquenet - the two of them continued to follow the wind, which took them (among other places) to Las Laveuses, which is the village of Framboise and Paul in Five Quarters of the Orange. But with them now is another child, Rosette. Rosette is a challenging child, at present she is four and not yet talking but drawing wonderful pictures and signing for communication.

Vianne, Anouk and Rosette end up working in a small cafe/chocolaterie in Paris, which is where they meet Zozie - a mesmerizing woman who quickly finds herself in good graces of all those around her. Vianne struggles to live a life without magic after Accidents happen with Anouk and Rosette, but Zozie has a magic and an agenda all of her own.

Definitely a great read and I loved how Harris intertwined other novels into this one - it feels like fun insider jokes to see characters from other novels pop up.
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LibraryThing member phoebesmum
I'm never sure if it's really okay to like Joanne Harris, or if she's a bit naff. Let's go out on a limb and say yes, she probably is, but I find her quite readable anyway. This is a follow-up to 'Chocolat', with Vianne cowed and almost unrecognisable after her daughter's supernatural talents lead
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to tragedy, and easy prey for a travelling con artist (and worse). Rather unfortunately, the villain's the most colourful element in the book, but the rest of it jogs along fairly comfortably. As ever, Montmartre is romanticised out of all recognition, but that seems to be its main purpose in life these days.
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LibraryThing member saroz
Another very winning novel from Joanne Harris, well in the spirit - as well as the world - of "Chocolat." Indeed, the only way I felt significantly removed from the experience of reading "Chocolat" - that is to say, a conscious awareness that I was reading a different story - was in the added
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complexity of "The Girl with No Shadow." "Chocolat" was beautiful, even poetic in its simplicity, like a little fable. It moved effortlessly and concluded in a pleasingly open-ended manner. "The Girl with No Shadow" has much of the same richness of prose, but we as readers aren't being treated to a fairy tale any longer. This is a darker, stronger chocolate: both literally as a longer, more melancholic novel, and structurally, as Harris moves from fable to a more complex form of storytelling.

In fact, my one complaint might be that this time around, Harris has cemented her story just a little too strongly. "Chocolat" seemed to take place in a "no-time" France, with only the rare fleeting mention of technology (making it quite easy to adapt into a film set in 1959). "Shadow" is filled with credit cards, mobile phones and other indicators of the present day that seemed to slightly counteract the magical element of the story, which of course becomes more and more prevalent (and important) as the tale goes on. Furthermore, I was secretly a little pleased to have Vianne and her daughter, Anouk left to their changing wind at the end of the original novel; in the sequel, everything wraps up just a little too tidy. I realize that Vianne's need for stability is a constant theme of the book; it just made it feel the *tiniest* bit less special, that's all.

Still, though, there's a great deal to delight in here. Vianne and Anouk - now going by Yanne and Annie - find themselves faced with a new and far more terrifying adversary, Zozie, who (both realistically and magically) steals identities. The conceit of gaining trust through magical chocolates, so much a part of "Chocolat," is turned on its head here as Zozie manipulates Vianne's new chocolaterie to serve her own purpose. There are both thematic and literal links to the earlier novel - including one or two questions answered - and we are introduced to Vianne's curious new daughter, Rosette, along with her own special "spirit animal." This is a novel to enjoy over many long, savored cups of hot chocolate.

A few more words about the American edition of the novel. Although I appreciate the title of "The Girl with No Shadow," I'm a little sorry that the original title, "The Lollipop Shoes," was not kept for the American market. It just seems to fit better, especially as the eponymous shoes are such a constant through the story. Furthermore, while I enjoyed the stylistic touch of introducing the different narrated sections with a little illustration - Cat Moon for Vianne, Rabbit Moon for Anouk, and a New Moon for Zozie - these were not always consistent in my Advanced Reader's Edition, which left me occasionally confused. I hope they were corrected for the final, printed edition as they very gently telegraph the flow of the story without interrupting the ease of reading.

Overall, a very fine book. I will be recommending this to friends who have read the earlier novel or seen the film.
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LibraryThing member melissas09
The follow-up to Chocolat is excellent! More seductive than enchanting, The Girl With No Shadow is a darker story, at its heart the conflict between good and evil, magical and real, and lightness and darkness that the book's characters struggle with as they try to maintain a semblance of a normal
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life in the new chocolaterie in Montmartre, where Vianne (now called Yanne) has settled with her young daughters. Like the hot chocolate on the stove, their truer, more magical, selves continue to bubble up under the surface appearance of "normalcy" that Vianne has struggled to present to the world, in hopes of avoiding having to run again. However, the wind of change blows in a new influence, the carefree and fabulous Zozie, whose hidden magic helps the chocolate shop flourish, but at what price? A story filled with magic (for good and evil), mysteries, and characters whose lives are woven together through Harris' masterful storytelling, this book asks - and answers - the question, what's the harm in a little magic? Although I have a love/hate relationship with the multiple narratives used to tell this story, this allows us to truly get to know the three main characters - and the others - in a more in-depth manner that we might have otherwise. An intricate and magical book that captured my attention and imagination from the first page to the last.
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LibraryThing member gribeaux
Good, but with a darker element than Chocolat. Think chocolat that has grown up and taken some responsibility for its actions. The ending, while satisfying is a bit too saccharine for me. The bad character is also just a little too self satisfied and has got away (until the end) with more than
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you'd think actually possible. Also not sure about the denouement re 'Vianne's mum.
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LibraryThing member avisannschild
Chocolat is one of my all-time favourite books, so I was delighted to receive a copy of its sequel to review as part of LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program.

The Girl with No Shadow focuses less on Vianne’s story—instead it is told in the alternating voices of Vianne, her daughter Anouk and
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the mysterious Zozie. Joanne Harris writes each character with a distinctive voice, which was a good thing since the images identifying each section were not always the correct ones in my Early Reviewers’ copy.

While Chocolat could (almost) have taken place in the Middle Ages, this book has a much more modern feel, which contrasts more sharply with the book's magical elements. It is also darker in tone but as engaging and as full of memorable quirky secondary characters as Chocolat was. Harris writes with her usual flair; however, I felt it took Vianne too long to clue into what was really going on and the ending stretched the limits of my credulity.

Harris has also neatly sidestepped the issue of the different endings in the book and movie versions of Chocolat, so this book works as a sequel to either. And although I generally don’t like it when publishers change the title of a novel to suit a different market, this time I think the American title better captures the darker edge of this book.
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LibraryThing member ishtahar
A wonderful, magical, mystical tour of chocolate and Mountmatre, of prejudice and lies and the fear of being who we truly are. A worthy sequel to Choclat, which makes me want to re-read said book. And a wonderful re-appearance of Roux.

Harris language makes you smell and taste the surroundings she
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describes, to love and hate the characters in equal measure, to empathise with their human foibles and to weep at the way magic is lost from our lives.

Read it. I demand of you :)
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LibraryThing member kindschi
Another great book by Joanne Harris. A sequel to Chocolate it continues the life of Vianne four years after the end of the first book.

Much has changed for Vianne and Anouk. Vianne only wants to fit in and be invisible. Anouk can't understand why they have to do that. She is growing and changing
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Vianne sees her own past in her.

Zozie joints the group and works herself into their lives. Vianne keeps wondering what she wants and what the price she'll have to pay in the end is.

Roux (Johnny Depp in the movie) comes to Paris to find them. He feels that Vianne is in trouble. Imagine his surprise when he finds her engaged to another man and with a four year old daughter named, Rosette.

The winds of change are blowing take a trip along with it to find out what happens as the magic comes alive.
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LibraryThing member stephaniechase
Not quite what I expected -- this, the sequel to "Chocolat," is both more muddled and more obvious than the first, almost as if Harris wasn't quite sure what she wanted to do or wanted to hit the reader over the head with it.

That being said, I had to keep reading it. Vianne may be less intriguing
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than in "Chocolat," but Anouk is a wonder, and her character (and her chapters) illuminate the novel.
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LibraryThing member witchyrichy
I promised myself that I was only going to read one chapter a day but yesterday morning I got sucked in and finished the book this morning. At some point, even though I sensed that Vianne and her daughters would be safe, I just had to know how it turned out. I usually don't like having multiple
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narrators but Harris did an excellent job of introducing each character and using multiple voices helped flesh out the characters in a personal way. There were surprised at the end that I hadn't picked up on and I loved the way she tied up some of the loose ends that weren't solved in Chocolat.
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LibraryThing member canalrat
A Fun read, with magical descriptions of chocolate and people
LibraryThing member karen_o
In Joanne Harris' wonderful sequel to Chocolat we catch up with Vianne Rocher, daughters Anouk, now eleven, and four-year old Rosette in Montmartre. Vianne has changed her name to Yanne Charbonneau and Anouk is now known as Annie and the nameless chocolaterie she operates in Montmartre bears no
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resemblance to La Celeste Praline, the labor of love we knew from Chocolat. Vianne has somehow lost her spirit and has run so hard from the past that she's on the verge of marrying Thierry, a stolid older man of means whom you know instantly will never fit the real Vianne.

Enter Zozie de l'Alba, a woman wearing lollipop shoes who possesses both sparkle and a past and practices a much darker sort of magic than Yanne, and things begin to change.

Part Chocolat and part Gentlemen and Players with a Joanne Harris ending that satisfies, I enjoyed every one of these 400-plus pages and hope others do, too.
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LibraryThing member sslibrary
Sequel to Chocolat, published as The Lollipop Shoes outside of U.S.

Chocolat was full of colors and enchantment that we never really knew the source of. The Girl with No Shadow reveals these right away. This story starts with none of the enchantment and mystery of Chocolat. We are introduced to
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Zozie who is leaving her previous life. Each chapter comes from the point of view of either Zozie, Vianne, or Anouk. This threw me at first until I realized we had switched characters. Roux returns but is not the same character he was in Chocolat. Vianne’s life before Chocolat and between that story and this one is explained where Chocolat never really addressed this. For some reason I always got the impression that Chocolat took place in the 1950s or so, but according to this story it took place in the present. Vianne and Anouk seem out of place in the present day, and it was hard to wrap my mind around.

It was a good story, but kind of flat for me. I prefer Chocolat.
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LibraryThing member reader517
Joanne Harris’s sequel to her sly, clever novel, Chocolat, finds Vianne and her two daughters living in Paris four years after the wind blew them out of the village of Lansquenet. Gone is the magic that enriched their lives and transformed the village, and that is fine by Vianne. Now calling
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herself Yanne, she only wants her family to be normal and safe, and on the surface, it seems to be. Anouk is now a pre-teen with an early adolescent’s normal angst. Her younger sister, Rosette, appears intelligent enough even if she can’t talk. And Yanne herself is soon to be engaged to her staid bourgeois landlord. Life couldn’t be more ordinary, until the fateful wind blows into their lives a mysterious and exotic woman who somehow seems to know all about “Yanne” and her family, and soon Vianne must face an adversary that threatens all she holds dear.

Although it’s a sequel to Chocolat, The Girl With No Shadow is not Chocolat II. It is a darker, grittier story of mothers and daughters, and readers expecting the same Disneyesque charm of the first novel will find this contemporary fairy-tale more in the vein of the Brothers Grimm. My only quibble is I missed the zest of Vianne during most of the story. The villain was a much more compelling creation. Nevertheless, fans who loved Chocolat and want to continue the story will enjoy this book.
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LibraryThing member h8denloose
"The Girl With No Shadow" is not as lyrical, purely enjoyable, or lighthearted as "Chocolat," also by Joanne Harris. The book makes a lot more sense if the reader has read "Chocolat" before attempting to get into this, the sequel. The beloved main character from "Chocolat", Vianne Rocher, has
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hidden herself in a new chocolaterie in the streets of Montmarte, for reasons that gradually unfold over the course of the sequel. However, Vianne is almost too effectively hidden; the reader finds it hard to see her as the same character that was so delightful and full of life in "Chocolat". Luckily, Anouk, Vianne's daughter, is there and familiar even as she is growing up and changing in the ways that pre-teens do--and in other ways that are quite unique. Other characters from "Chocolat" appear at unexpected times and in unexpected ways. But most of the action is taken up by a cast of new characters, none of them as endearing as those that frequented Vianne's chocolaterie in the previous tale. At the same time that "The Girl With No Shadow" is darker, it is also much deeper than its predecessor. With numerous complications and three narratives telling the story, the reader is definitely kept entertained and interested until the somewhat surprising but satisfying conclusion.
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LibraryThing member sarah_rubyred
As a big fan of a lot of Joanne Harris's work, though very aware of how some of it just doesn't hit the mark, I wasn't sure how a sequel to the fabulous 'Chocolat' could be one of her good ones. Unfortunately I was right. Though an interesting story of how we cannot hide from ourselves in the end,
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and having to fight rather than flee 'the kindly ones', this just didn't sit right.

Too long by half, if this had been the length of 'Chocolat', which I think it could have been quite easily by cutting out the repititious thoughts from both leading ladies, the identity theft could have made a decent thriller, instead I skim read it. It was such a creepy story, and it went on for so long that I rushed to get to the end where I knew things would work out. Disappointed.
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LibraryThing member sangreal
Joanne Harris revisits the magic of chocolate in this sequel to her wonderful Chocolat. When we meet Vianne and Anouk again however, the magic in their lives has all but disappeared. Even the change of names – from Vianne to Yanne, and Anouk to Annie – reflect the bland life that they are
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trying to fit into.

But magic finds its ways: Rosette, Yanne’s second daughter is imbued with magic in her very nature, and the fact that she is ‘different’ to other children her age only makes her ‘Accidents’ that much more potent.

The introduction of Zozie l’Alba into their lives causes the erosion of Yanne’s carefully planned obscurity. Zozie, more a stealer of lives than of mere identities, has no compunction about going after what she wants. In this case, it is Anouk’s very powerful abilities. She begins a careful campaign to steal Annie away from her family, using all the talents she has at her command.

Yanne has put magic so far behind her that she misses many cues about Zozie’s nature and plans, allowing Annie to fall under Zozie’s spell.

The very obvious differences between Roux (Yanne’s old love) and Thierry, her landlord who wishes to marry her underscore the chasm between a life lived full of magic, and one which is so removed from it that it seems like just going through the motions.

I really enjoyed the intertwining of the different types of magic employed by Zozie and Vianne. As other reviewers have noted, there is a darker feel to this book and to me that gave it much more depth than Chocolat.
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LibraryThing member stonelaura
This is a rather long-winded sequel to Harris’ bestseller, Chocolat. We meet once again the characters of Vianne Rocher and her daughter Anouk as they are just settling into yet another city in their continual attempt to escape that haunting wind that brings the past swirling around them. This
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time it is the big city of Paris to which they flee in the hopes of finding anonymity. They are struggling to make a go of yet another chocolate shop, this time without the magical assistance that Vianne has chosen to leave behind as she strives to find a normal life now that she has to care not only for Anouk, but also for functionally challenged four year-old Rosette as well . Into their lives come two central characters, the scheming but irresistible Zozie, who like Vianne has hidden identities, and dependable but controlling Thierry, who offers security. There’s magic galore as Zozie puts her plan into action, sweeping talented and compliant Anouk into her web. We must wait much too long before Roux (who seems a bit less charming than Johnny Depp) to make his appearance, but it’s much less than the four years Vianne has had to wait. The characters are interesting even though the story takes much to long to reach its predictable conclusion.
Reader Susanna Burney is a good match.
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LibraryThing member iammbb
A pleasant enough read.

While I have read another Joanne Harris novel, it was not Chocolat. That one I saw as a movie. I mean who can pass up a movie adaptation with Johnny Depp? Usually, if I hadn't already read the book, I would read it as a follow up to the movie but with this one did not do
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so.

So, while I picked up this book because of my familiarity with its characters, I'm unsure as to whether the book version and the movie version of the characters are all that similar, although it does occur to me that since Harris wrote this sequel after the movie, she could very well have smoothed out any discrepancies.

I was never enthralled but the book kept my interest well enough. Because Harris makes no bones about Zozie's amorality, a sense of impending doom hangs over the entire novel which frustrated me but also kept me invested enough to see how it all played out.

The novel is rife with identity issues and morals about the perils of not being true to one's self.
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LibraryThing member eas311
I like books about magic and chocolate. Mainly chocolate.
LibraryThing member tillymint100
I borrowed this from a friend who I had bought it for as a Birthday present. I re-read Chocolat before reading this and I am so glad that I did. I think however that overall I enjoyed this sequel more than Chocolat,
LibraryThing member judithann
Great great book! It's actually a thriller, a paranormal thriller if you like. The magic atmosphere of "Chocolat" was back for me. I thought the mother, who was the main character in "Chocolat", was not quite so prominent here, which was a pity. She almost married the wrong man, irritanting type,
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that man! I somehow thought "Chocolat" was set in the 60s/70s but in this book, the story continues 4 years later, and is quite contemporary, with mobile phones etc. If you liked "Chocolat" (the book) you will love this too!
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LibraryThing member Eruntane
This was very good, and very readable, but sadly not up to Joanne Harris's usual standard. It kept me turning the pages, but only to find out if I had guessed correctly what was going to happen, and disappointingly, most of the time I had. I used to love her books because they all had something new
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and different about them, but this just felt like a rehash of Chocolat and Gentlemen and Players rolled into one. Given that I was also disappointed by Runemarks, I can't help but wonder whether Joanne Harrris's spark is fading along with Vianne Rocher's. And if so, let's hope that Vianne's rebirth at the end will be echoed by a return to form in Harris's next book.
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LibraryThing member sunfi
The sequel to Chocolat, while the characters and settings in the first book were magical, I didn't find this to hold true for Lollipop Shoes. A few new characters were added in and the story lost its momentum for me, so I'm putting this one down and not finishing it.
LibraryThing member LDVoorberg
I received this book for Christmas, otherwise I'd never have picked it myself to read. It's a sequel to Chocolat, which I never read but saw the movie, fortunately, because there are many allusions to the past and if you know that story all the better.

There are three narrators, Zozie, Vianne, and
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Anouk. Symbols at the beginning of the chapters indicate who will be narrating, so there is a type of 3rd person omniscient but told 1st person. The story is interesting to a point, because Zozie has all these secrets and past identities, but the whole occult aspect, which increases as the book progresses, did not interest me. In the end, it's really a type of modern day fairy tale, witches and kidnapped children and spells etc. I think the fact that it took me six months to get through the book says something.
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2008

Physical description

592 p.; 5 inches

ISBN

0552773158 / 9780552773157

Barcode

2527
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