Quote:
Originally Posted by fantasyfan
This is my first time reading the book and initially I too found Anne’s character very difficult to accept. She was simply too bouncy and cheerful for a child who had gone through a dreadful abusive childhood. Montgomery tries hard to make her character believable by giving us a whole chapter concerning Anne’s horrible past and showing her terror at the possibility of being farmed out again. But I don’t think it works. In the end I simply took Anne as given.
Once I did that I found a great deal to enjoy. The description of the locale and the natural surroundings gave a radiance to the book. The other characters were nicely portrayed and Anne did grow upon me as the story developed. I think I’ll read the sequels.
Just as a coda, I did read the “Emily of New Moon” series and in that case I found Emily to be a far more believable and complex character than Anne.
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I do agree with you about the
Emily books,
fantasyfan. I think they are superior to this one. I have no desire to read any more of the
Anne books though.
It is a very different experience to read a book like this one as an adult, having no warm recollections of reading it as a child. I suppose we all have books we love because we read them as children. So I think
Bookworm-Girl's point about that attachment is very real. Those of us without that childhood experience of the book are in a different boat.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Montgomery did not write this as a children's book, although that is what it has become. I shall see if I can find the reference again.