faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #46 Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

Somehow I managed to not review this one for three weeks. I am unsure how that occurred. I know I started writing this review several times, I guess I haven’t finished it until now. The third Anne book is almost as good as the first two. I don’t know if reading any of the following Anne books will be as wonderful as reading the first, but they all fall nicely into the heart. Anne of the Island finds our hero attending college, and all that means.

 

What I learned about myself reading this one is that it is difficult to watch anyone you care about go through the pratfalls and indecisions of late adolescence. While much happens in these books the plot point which stands out to a reader looking at the long game is Anne’s relationship with Gilbert. At the beginning of their sophomore year at Redmond Anne and Prissy, Phillipa, and Stella have been able to rent the adorable little house along the park where many wonderful things happen. But it is also here that Anne turns down the marriage proposal of Gilbert. In fact, Anne turns down not only Gilbert, but four others as well over the course of the four years in Kingsport. It isn’t until the end of the fourth year that Anne discovers she was very wrong in her notions of romantic love.

 

There’s lot s else happening with Anne as she ages from 18 to 22 and discovers  life on her own terms. Her best friend is married and has a child, the sale of her very first story, to name but a few. The overarching feeling I had while reading the adventures of Anne and her friends was that I wanted to sit and talk with them the way I sit and talk with my sister who is about the same age these days. This did not lessen my enjoyment of this book in the slightest.

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #45: Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery

I love Anne. I love how she strives for goodness, embodies true friendship, and endeavors to live by her principles. Although much has changed in Anne’s world she and Marilla have settled into a relationship of easy affection and mutual respect. In this outing we experience a string of events in Anne’s life over the course of two years picking up after she decides to put off college following the death of Matthew.

Like all new teachers Anne has some idealistic and rather unrealistic notions of what she can achieve, but that does not stop her from trying and eventually achieving a great deal. Not to worry though, our Anne continues to find herself in and out of scrapes including accidentally dyeing her nose red.  It’s against the backdrop of teaching young minds that Anne seems to come into herself as an adult. By the end of the novel she has taught the three Rs, she has also learned how complicated life can be. Anne’s adventures include forming the Avonlea Village Improvement Society, meddling in her neighbor’s romance, and helping Marilla bring up two orphans at Green Gables.

There’s an undeniable undercurrent in the book about romance. In fact, marriage and married life is one of the strongest elements of the book and the theme of communication in relationships between women and men and the danger of unhappiness caused by unresolved misunderstandings is played out over and over again in the various stories encapsulated in each chapter. Read more about this and my other thoughts over on my blog.

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #42: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

I don’t know how I missed the Anne of Green Gables books when I was younger, but I did. I read all the Babysitters Club, all the Little House on the Prairie books but no Anne. I wish that I had found these books earlier since Anne is such a kindred spirit, as she would phrase it. L.M. Montgomery took much of the beautiful surroundings of Prince Edward Island at the turn of the last century to create the optimum environment to introduce perhaps the most fully formed adolescent character I have ever read.