Music Break: I Was Here - Kristin Chenoweth

Reading the Anne of Green Gables series

Anne of Green Gables. Dir. Kevin Sullivan. Sullivan Entertainment, 1985. Television.

I've read Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables a million and one times. I grew up loving the PBS mini series starring Megan Follows (especially the much maligned Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story).

It was only a couple of years ago that I actually read past the first book, and even then I flew through the first five books and then got a couple of chapters into Anne of Ingleside before thinking 'ew this is about the kids no thanks'. This year, encouraged by being super behind my reading challenge, and also having nothing else to do with my time, I decided to force myself to read them all. And you know what? The kids aren't that bad. And I may have found a new favourite book out of it all.

Anne of Green Gables: Obviously the classic. I could read this story a million times and never bore of it, and always come out with a new perspective. It's up there with Jane Eyre as one of the most classic and well-written female bildungsroman novels of all time. If you finish this book without a crush on Gilbert (and let's admit it, Matthew too), you didn't read it properly.

Anne of Avonlea: A little different from the first book, but still... very Anne. I think what I enjoy most about this book is that we seem to get even more Marilla Cuthbert than we got in Green Gables. It's also beautiful to watch Anne and Gilbert's relationship develop, even as Anne remains blissfully unaware.

Anne of the Island: Anne and Gilbert finally get together in this one. And it's wonderful and beautiful and it's what you spent the last three books waiting for. Unlike in the tv world (Gilmore Girls, Dawson's Creek, Veronica Mars, shall I go on...) the college years are not the worst part of this series. It's great to see Anne being able to socialise with people on her intellectual level about intelligent, sensible things. Anne has matured past her everything-is-romantic-and-pretty level, but we don't get to see that when she's with Diana and the girls. Later on, she mostly talks to housekeepers and nosy neighbours. So let's enjoy Anne at probably her best.

Anne of Windy Poplars: Mary Sue of Windy Poplars would be a more fitting title. This is a book written years after all the other books, to fill in the three year gap between Gilbert's proposal and their wedding, and it shows. Oh man, does it show. All that happens in this book is Anne meets people and changes their lives forever. Oh, some people don't like Anne, but then they meet Anne and their lives are improved forever because she is the most wonderful person in the world and so perfect. There would almost be a redeeming factor in the fact that the story is half told through love letters from Anne to Gilbert, but no. We never get any of Gilbert's replies, and he's barely in the book. We have to put up with Anne's flowery prose at length (there's a reason it's charming in the other books - because we're told about it through the much better writing of Lucy Maud Montgomery!) and the romance? THEY OMIT THAT. What is even the point.

Anne's House of Dreams: Wins the award for wankiest title of the series (close follow up: Rainbow Valley), but all in all a great book. Captain Jim is charming, the B Plot with Leslie Moore is wonderful, and we get to see Anne and Gilbert's wedding which is everything you wanted it to be and more. Just wish we could have left out Anne's commentary about how silly she was trying to write silly stories and novels in the past, because she's a mother and a housewife and that's the real goal in life.

Anne of Ingleside: Anne in name only, this is really about the kids - except for a terrible plot near the end where Anne thinks Gilbert doesn't love her anymore because he forgot their anniversary. Honestly, this is mostly only good for character building. This was also written years after the rest of the series, and for some reason Lucy Maud Montgomery chose to throw in a HUGE spoiler for Rilla of Ingleside right at the end, which kinda ruins it if this is your first time reading the series. As a side note, Shirley is the most nothing character ever. I feel like Montgomery kept forgetting he was one of the kids, so every now and then she just threw his name into a scene. This is the same in the next three books. He gets a small going-to-war plot in the last book, and Montgomery can't even be bothered bringing him back from war before the book ends. That's how much she (and you) care about this character.

Rainbow Valley: The kids are old enough to not be really irritating at this point, so this is a far more enjoyable read. We also focus on the Meredith kids of the Manse, and develop them a whole bunch. Basically, this is the better version of Anne of Ingleside way before it was ever written. Let me throw in another side note: dear god, please drop the overdone lisp on Rilla. I have a lisp, and it pissed me off to no end to read the dialogue of this character. Every s is written as a th, including turning 'ears' to 'earth' WHICH IS A WHOLE OTHER WORD. It's painful to read, and it's just unnecessarily.

Rilla of Ingleside: Actually one of the best books of the series. Deals with war, loss, responsibility, and love. And they've dropped the overdone lisp, for the most part. I don't know what to say about this book other than I'm still thinking about it days after finishing it. It's truly an experience. You need to read Anne of Ingleside and Rainbow Valley to really get the full force of this book, but you will love it.

I'm pretty sure The Blythes are Quoted is actually the 9th book, but that's only been released in full very recently and I don't have it yet. And I don't know, I feel like Rilla of Ingleside is exactly where I wanted this series to end.