L. M. Montgomery (1874–1942)

I like to think of Avonlea as my happy place, and its one I've sunk deeply into over this holiday weekend. Unfortunately, Further Chronicles of Avonlea is not a happy place. This book is populated by mean, spiteful, bitter, nasty people, to the point where I wonder if LMM had developed a complex about being deeply unhappy with her life and decided to inflict it upon the place she was best known for.

It's not all bad, mind. "The Brother Who Failed" brought me to tears over the kindness paid to show more its gentle main character. "The Materializing of Cecil" was repurposed for the Duncan MacTavish episode of Road to Avonlea. There is an Anne + Diana short, "The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily," though it is a sad one.

But when the stories in this collection are bad, they are awful. "The Education of Betty" is basically about a man grooming a little girl to be his wife (GROSS). "Tannis of the Flats" is horribly racist through and through - actually an impressive feat, considering the way it starts with Tannis being described as a ~beautiful half-breed~.

But yeah. My main takeaway from this collection is that LMM was deeply unhappy when she wrote it, populating it with so many women who are bitter, jealous, angry creatures with either way too much agency (one mother declaring that no woman will ever steal her son and making him swear that he'll never marry), or absolutely none (one woman bound by her dying mother to care for her selfish brother, to the point of losing her own home at his whim). show less

If I could choose a book to live in, it just might be Anne of Green Gables. I'd love to live with Matthew and Marilla; go to school with Jane Andrews, Ruby Gillis, Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, and even Josie Pye; sit in Miss Stacy's classroom, and have Diana Barry as a “bosom friend.” Of course, I would be nicer to Gilbert Blythe.

I've read the book and watched the television adaptation several times, but this was the first time I have listened to an audio version. I noticed for the first show more time what I believe is a key to the book's enduring charm. It's Anne's voice. Although Montgomery uses an omniscient narrator, readers experience many of the key events not as they're happening, but after the fact through Anne's conversations with Matthew, Marilla, or Diana. This allows readers to view the world from Anne's perspective, as well as to view Anne as others see her.

Since this book is in the public domain, there are many audio versions to choose from. Narrator Colleen Winton did an admirable job with the vocal characterizations, and I think most listeners would be satisfied with her performance. show less

Our beloved puffed-sleeved, redhaired chatterbox nerd.This was perhaps THE book that made child-me think it was the most important thing to have a best friend. Reading it as an adult, well, that still sounds nice, but I was mostly impressed by how well Anne studied*.

I liked how aspirational the character is - somehow growing up to be so thoughtful and kind and smart - but I loved when she was being a bit wily (hello flower hat church scene!) or naughty or just generally getting into show more shenanigans.

The story timeline passed much faster than I remembered. How was it already time for her to go to college or work? I had remembered or just imagined endless summers of adventures. There weren't that many scenes with Gilbert at all so why was I so obsessed? Also, I had forgotten that Matthew died which I felt was passed over pretty quickly and only done to force Anne to stay.

The only thing I remember from the grown-up Anne series is her saying how despite contemporaneous advice to not baby talk to your baby, she just cannot resist! With this as my only guide, I worry about the subsequent books but I will persist!

*Side rant: She IS the titular character but I wish stories would quit it with the underdog who comes in mid-school year and studies hard and tops the class. Them studying hard and doing fine is also an acceptable storyline. Justice for the kid who studied just as hard to be number one before the main character showed up. Justice for Paris Gellar! show less

L.M. Montgomery's irrepressible red-headed heroine, Anne Shirley - she of the high ideals, fiery temper, and elfin beauty - returns in this third volume devoted to her adventures, first published in 1915, and following upon the initial Anne of Green Gables (1908), and its first sequel, Anne of Avonlea (1909). Picking up one week after the events of the preceding book, Anne of the Island is the story of Anne's four years at Redmond College, and follows her as she leaves the island - Prince show more Edward Island, that is - for the fictional town of Kingsport, Nova Scotia. Here she plunges into the labor and leisure of the college experience - her studies, in which (predictably) she excels in English; her friends, both old and new; her living situation, first in a boarding house, and then in the delightful Patty's Place; and finally, her first serious "beaus" (and proposals!) - emerging, in the end, transformed from girl to woman.

I have always loved this book, enjoying everything from the love-triangle involving Anne, Gilbert Blythe and Royal Gardner, to the many little holiday and summer interludes, in which Anne returns to Avonlea, and to her circle of family and friends at Green Gables. The doings of those four college girls - Priscilla Grant and Stella Maynard, two of Anne's old school chums from Queens; Philippa Gordon, a flighty but lovable rich girl whom the others meet for the first time at Redmond; and Anne herself - who take up residence together, make for an engaging story (I particularly adore the three cats!), and I cannot think of Patty's Place without wishing that I too had had the experience of living in such a house, while in college!

Of course, this being L.M. Montgomery, it isn't all sweetness and light, and the early death of Ruby Gillis - one of Anne's grade-school chums - from consumption, provides a poignant counter-balance to the more carefree aspects of the story. While there's no doubt that this particular part of the novel functions as a cautionary tale - so much so, that a number of other reviewers have found it offensively preachy - I have always been moved by Anne's genuine struggle, in her discussion with Ruby, to articulate her own inchoate beliefs about the metaphysical. This balancing of the inner and outer life - of the everyday and the eternal - is something I always find particularly well done, in Montgomery's work, and in her characters.

All in all, Anne of the Island was as delightful on this reread (hard to say how many times it's been), as the first time I encountered it! I think I may reread the next "Anne" book - Anne of Windy Poplars - sooner, rather than later. show less