Anne of the Island Book Review
Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery
1915
Classic, Children’s fiction
Anne of Green Gables is a children’s classic I have known of since I was a kid. I’ve visited Prince Edward Island dozens of times, even stopping by the irl setting of the novel. After watching and loving the CBC adaption Anne with an E, I decided it was finally time to read the source material. I listened to the first two Anne books as audiobooks earlier this year, pre-COVID-19, on my morning bus.
I don’t think that many people realize that the Anne of Green Gables series is nine books long! Since I have lots of time on my hands, I delved back into Avonlea to read book three. Out of all the books I have read so far, I decided to review book three of series, where Anne and I are closest in age. For fans of the show, I believe that this is the last book that Anne with an E borrows content from.
The book follows Anne as she adapts to leaving PEI to attend (a fictional) university in Nova Scotia. I love that Montgomery choose to have a young woman follow her dreams of attending university in books meant for young children. Anne is an amazing role model, and it’s cool to think this book is over a hundred years old. Montgomery does portray some of the hardships Anne faced in choosing to attend university, but doesn’t let them hold her protagonist back.
(Spoiler paragraph) One of the ways this book differentiated from the first two was the amount of death. It showed how the rest of Avonlea was growing old. The death of Anne’s childhood friend is what really did it for me. It was so sad and signaled the end of Anne’s childhood. While I love watching Anne’s character grow, I feel an odd sort of sadness for the times that one can’t go back to.
After reading the first two books as audiobooks, it was nice to finally read the words on the page. Lucy Maud Montgomery has an amazing writing voice. She uses capitalizations frequently to portray emotions. I love them! It really helps to capture the dialect of the PEI and the Maritimes.
Montgomery also did really well to show how much Anne has matured by book three. Anne is in her late teens and early twenties in the book, and more grown up than when she arrived on the Cuthbert’s front porch at age 11. Despite all of this, Anne still possesses wonder and awe for the world around her. She has grown, but not hardened, which makes her such a fun character to follow. I appreciate how looking for a husband isn’t number one on her list. While times are obviously different than they are now, Anne loves learning and books. She is in university to immerse herself and find new prospects. Furthermore, Anne seemed balanced as a university student; she does well in school and still has a social life. In the same way I think younger me would have benefited from reading the first book earlier, I think that this book came to me at the right moment and that I still could learn from Anne.
One of the things I liked about the novel is also one of the things I didn’t like. The book takes place across multiple provinces and settings, expanding the literary world. This worked well in some scenes, but other chapters felt a bit jumpy. Years go by very quickly in the book, something that isn’t as common in a lot of books today. Instead of day to day life, the book feels like small snippets of Anne’s overall life.
Overall, I would really suggest that if what I wrote here sounded interesting, try the series. The book are incredibly easy to read and compared to some of the other classics I have read this year, Anne of Green Gables requires no adjustment period. I would especially recommend the books to people who love being immersed in fictional worlds, because Montgomery has really beautiful, vivid imagery. Since the books are classics and not copyrighted, there are many free editions out there just waiting to be read!
Rating 5/5: I adore the series, and I hope you will too!
A couple quotations that stuck with me
“Oh,” she thought, “How horrible it is that people have to grow up- and marry- and CHANGE!”
She told herself that she longed greatly to go back to those dear merry days when life was seen through a rosy mist of hope and illusion, and possesses an indefinable something that passed away forever.
The last two pages, when everything that has been accumulating throughout the book is said aloud, are very beautiful. If it wasn’t a major spoiler, I’d copy it all here!
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