leynes's Reviews > Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables is everything. I got interested in reading this book after hearing Ariel gush about it for years. And I initially wanted to save it for October (“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” – duh) but I'm so glad that I didn't. I fell sick in February and was in the mood to read a cute children's book, which is why I picked up this book.

Anne of Green Gables recounts the adventures of Anne Shirley, an 11-year-old orphan girl, who is mistakenly sent to two middle-aged siblings, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had originally intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm, Green Gables, in the fictional town of Avonlea in Prince Edward Island, Canada. The novel recounts how Anne makes her way through life with the Cuthberts, in school, and within the town.

And yes, it's a story suitable for children but I feel like it hits closer to home as an adult. Much of its humor (and believe me, this book is HILARIOUS) would have been lost on me as a child. Also the intricate character dynamic of Anne and her new foster parents. I am really happy that I read it as an adult.

But really, Marilla, one can’t stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?

I feel like this book can be truly hit or miss for people, and it all hinges on whether or not you will take to Anne as a character. She's a child, 11 at the beginning of the book, 16 when it ends, so she is definitely annoying af at times, self-centered, oblivious to the problems of other people, she literally won't shut up and I'm positive that her dialogue makes up at least 60% of this novel. ;) So, she's not a character that just everyone will love. But if you do, you will fall head over heels in love with this book.

Anne of Green Gables is charming, hilarious, heart-warming, and gut-wrenching at the same time. I didn't expect to laugh out loud (for real, no hyperbole!) every other page. Every single joke landed with me. Montgomery's witty writing style, the banter, Anne's hilarious monologues and Marilla's unsympathetic responses, the little adventures and mishaps that Anne gets herself into on a daily basis – it's all so wonderful.

This book feels like a spring morning, with the first sun in months on your skin, it tastes like your favorite apple pie, it smells like the ocean. I know I'm repeating myself but it is simply wonderful. I didn't expect to fall in love with Green Gables and its inhabitants as much as I did – Anne, Matthew and Marilla will always have a place in my heart. As well as the other inhabitants of Avonlea, most notably Diana (who is a queen), Gilbert (who is everything), Mrs. Rachel Lynde (who is an icon!), and Miss Stacy (who is doing the Lord's work out here). I love all of them more than life itself.

Anne of Green Gables did not only make me laugh in ways I haven't laughed in a long time (at a book), it also made me cry, more like historically sob over the pages, so much so that they're wavy right now. Since I had read through the chapter titles before jumping into the story, I was pretty certain that something would happen at the end of the book that would completely wreck me. And yes, I was right. It happened. And it wrecked me. [I'm really happy that the show, "Anne with an E", took a different approach and didn't include that event in any of their three seasons. I would not have been able to handle it again.]

The only minor criticism I have of this novel is that it could've been 50-70 pages shorter. The first half was AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING – like I said before, literally laughing out loud on every page – but when Anne grew up, I felt like Montgomery could've told her story a little more tighter, as some of Anne's adventures and mishaps just started to feel repetitive and I wanted to see her character growth a bit earlier.

Nonetheless, I still flew through this 400+ pages children's classic in four days – whilst nursing a headache – so it was still a true page-turner for me. I cannot wait to return to the world of Avonlea some day – ya'll have convinced me to give the second and third book in the series a shot. I need to see more of my baby Gilbert!

Favorite/ notable moments: (spoilers ahead!)
– ‘If Marilla had said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a kangaroo from Australia Mrs Rachel could not have been more astonished.’ – from the first chapter on I knew I was going to be in for a fun ride; Montgomery's wit and humor is unmatched and EXACTLY my cup of tea
– ‘She was sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since sitting and waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with all her might and main.’ – and from her first appearance, I fell in love with Anne Shirley
– Anne telling Matthew: ‘I’ve never belonged to anybody – not really.’
– ‘Will you please call me Cordelia?’ she said eagerly. ‘Call you Cordelia! Is that your name?’ – Marilla was like WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON UP IN HERE???
– ‘I can’t. I’m in the depths of despair.’ – half of the humor is that Anne is so fucking extra, she's the most dramatic of children and her vocabulary is UNMATCHED
– ‘And when people mean to be good to you, you don’t mind very much when they’re not quite – always.’ – I found it really interesting how differently Anne’s past abuse are portrayed in the book vs the show ("Anne with an E"), it's much more explicit in the show due to all the horrifying flashback scenes where we see Anne getting whipped by her former foster parents and bossed around, bullied and assaulted at the orphanage, the book is much less overt
– however, similarly to Harry Potter, it's pretty unrealistic that Anne got out of these horrifying situations without any mental issues or problems, just like Harry, she's basically the purest, most naive and even confident and self-assured child, and whilst I love that for her, it's not a realistic portrayal of how children who are abused/neglected FOR YEARS during their early childhood and teenage years feel and act
– Marilla telling Anne: “I haven’t any use at all for little girls who aren’t neat.” was such a fucking low point, I love Marilla but especially in the beginning of the book she is highly manipulative and emotionally abusive towards Anne (by dangling the threat of not keeping her over her head constantly), it was hard to read
– However, it is worth of note that Marilla is the one shouldering most of the responsibility of Green Gables, therefore, she has to be the practical (harsher) one, whereas Matthew – who comes across as more sympathetic – can allow himself to keep his head in the clouds and indulge Anne's every whim (but only BECAUSE Marilla manages everything)
– ‘I never say any prayers.’ […] Marilla decided that Anne’s religious training must be begun at once. Plainly there was no time to be lost. – Marilla really was like WE BROUGHT A HEATHEN TO THIS HOUSE
– ‘I’d love to call you Aunt Marilla,’ said Anne wistfully. – WHY IS SHE SO PURE?
– After Mrs Rachel calls her ugly: ‘You have hurt mine worse than they were ever hurt before even by Mrs Thomas intoxicated husband. And I’ll never forgive your for it, never, never!’ – first of all, Rachel was an ass for that, but more notably, again, we get some hints at Anne's past abuse but nothing specific ... due to the fact that it's left to the imagination, one imagines the worst, but if Rachel calling her ugly is worse than anything Mr Thomas did, then it couldn't have been as bad as I first imagined (= sexual assault)
– ‘Puffed sleeves are so fashionable now. It would give me such a thrill, Marilla, just to wear a dress with puffed sleeves.’ – I love her more than life itself!
– When Anne and Marilla went to pay the Barrys a visit, so that Anne could be introduced to Diana, Mrs Barry asked: ’How are you?’ And Anne replied: ‘I am well in body although considerably rumpled in spirit, thank you, ma’am,’ said Anne gravely.
– ‘I don’t feel that I could endure the disappointment if anything happened to prevent me from getting to the picnic. I suppose I’d live through it, but I’m certain it would be a lifelong sorrow.’ – ANNE HAS ZERO CHILL
– ‘I believe this child is crazy.’ – same, Marilla, SAME
– After Marilla forbids her to attend the picnic: ‘My heart is broken. You’ll feel remorse of conscience some day, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I forgive you.’
– Anne wishing she’d been the one who nearly drowned during the class trip instead of Jane Andrews – LOL
– Mr Phillips can suck my ass => whipping his students, humiliating them in front of the class, and let's not talk about the Prissy situation (PUKE) ... I love how they showed his true colors in the show!
– Once, when nobody was looking, Gilbert took from his desk a little pink candy heart with a gold motto on it, ‘You are sweet’, and slipped it under the curve of Anne’s arm. (HOW SWEET) Whereupon Anne arose, took the pink heart gingerly between the tips of her fingers, dropped it on the floor, ground it to powder beneath her heel, and resumed her position without deigning to bestow a glance on Gilbert. (CAN SHE CHILL? NO? OH, OKAY.)
– After Diana’s mother forbids her to associate with Anne (due to the wine debacle) and the girls have to say their farewell: ‘Ten minutes isn’t very long to say an eternal farewell. Oh, Diana, will you promise faithfully never to forget me, the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may caress thee?’
– ‘Diana gave me a lock of her hair and I’m going to sew it up in a little bag and wear it around my neck all my life. Please see that it is buried with me, for I don’t believe I’ll live very long. Perhaps when she sees me lying cold and dead before her Mrs Barry may feel remorse for what she has done and will let Diana come to my funeral.’ – I AM TELLING YOU SHE HAS NO CHILL
– ‘Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?’
– Marilla literally being xenophobic, she literally hates all foreigners and only trust Canadians ??? (‘How often have I told you never to let one of those Italians in the house! I don’t believe in encouraging them to come around at all.’ OKAY KAREN)
– In the sudden stab of fear that pierced to her very heart she realized what Anne had come to mean to her. => I really love Marilla's arc (in regards to Anne) though, she started out as this tough "unfeeling" woman and came to love her like her own daughter, BEAUTIFUL!
– ‘I don’t believe I’d really want to be a sensible person, because they are so unromantic. Mrs Lynde says there is no danger of my ever being one…’ – Rachel telling it straight as it is
– AUNT JOSEPHINE ... I loved her in the books already (her asking the girls to sent her more story? HOW PURE) but her take on the show (literally being a lesbian icon) was also refreshing
– Matthew telling Anne: ‘Don’t give up all your romance…’ I AM SOBBING

– ‘That’s the worst of growing up, and I’m beginning to realize it. The things you wanted so much when you were a child don’t seem half so wonderful to you when you get them.’ – I didn't remember asking for a therapy session, hello?
– Gilbert had ambitions, she knew, and Ruby Gillis did not seem the sort of person with whom such could be profitably discussed. => Anne, honey, I know you’re jealous but please stop shaming this girl
– ‘Well now, I’d rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne,’ said Matthew patting her hand. ‘Just mind you that – rather than a dozen boys. Well now, I guess it wasn’t a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It was a girl – my girl – my girl that I’m proud of.’ – THESE ARE LITERALLY MATTHEW’S LAST WORDS TO ANNE, I AM NOT OKAY
– “The Reaper whose Name is Death” => As soon as I saw that chapter title I knew I wouldn’t be ready for what’s to come … this was the most painful chapter, I literally SOBBED so much, I can’t remember the last time I cried this hard during a book (…probably when I read a memoir about the Rwandan genocide … yeah, that’s how bad I cried)
– For the first time shy, quiet Matthew Cuthbert was a person of central importance; the white majesty of death had fallen on him and set him apart as one crowned. – STOP STOP STOP, the tears are flowing again!!!
– Anne deciding to stay with Marilla and help her with the farm instead of going away to study at Redmond – I AM SOBBING
– “When I left Queen’s my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend.” – STOP STOP STOP
– Gilbert giving up his teaching position for Anne, + the two of them reconciling at the end of the book – I AM SOFT ... I am only reading the next two books for their relationship tbh, I NEED to see them together!

***

Update 1: For the first time in my life, I got myself a Netflix subscription. Yes, it was for Anne with an E. Just watched the first episode (literally sobbed the whole time). I HAVE ZERO REGRETS. Can't wait to see where this show takes me!

Update 2: It has only taken in a week to watch the entirety of all THREE SEASONS of "Anne with an E" (...and oh boy I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS, not all pleasant, especially when it comes to how trauma-ridden and separated and unresolved the storylines of the Black and indigenous characters were...) and I need more of this world. I can't believe that season 3 basically ends where book 1 ends ... with Anne wanting to go to college. GAAAAAAH. I wanted so desperately to see her in college and SEE her relationship with Gilbert ... guess I'll have to read book 2 and 3 after all. Will place my order shortly lmao.