I hate to say this, but this was disappointing. I was excited for a college story of sort, but we never see even the inside of a classroom. The Anne books have always been told in vignettes of sort with all kinds of characters, but this was had expositions galore on top of it. Most of Anne’s time at college was summarize quickly in a “the semester passed quickly and Anne studied a lot and soon it was time to go home for christmas”. All the Richmond scenes are passed with her chums and at the house she lives in. Even the moments with her new beau are summarized somewhat, including his marriage proposal. Instead we spend some time back in Avonlea and flitting between locations and spending time with characters and side love stories that are kinda irrelevant.

Anne makes new friends, including Phil, and very little time is spent with others at times. We learn that Diana is pregnant literally when Anne visits her because she just had her baby. No letter between them is on page. It had its charming moments as always, but it was quite frustrating at times.

Unpopular opinion: LM Montgomery writes annoying children. Even Anne, in her charming ways, is annoying (or was, as she is quite adult here). Davey continues to be the worst and I do not give a fuck about him. There is almost more Rachel Lynd in this than Marilla.

Also unpopular: The way the narrative treats Anne is starting to get on my nerves. Absolutely no one dislikes her ever. When she was younger this was balanced by her being dramatic and over the top and getting into silly trouble, but in this book all of that is gone and what is left is a girl that can do no wrong and charms absolutely everyone. I might be petty but if I was Anne’s friends I’d be annoyed/jealous. Anne and Pris meet Phil together, but Phil likes Anne best (as the book literally tells us). Just like when Anne and Diana stumbled onto Aunt Josephine or Miss Lavender. They both loved Anne more. By the end of this book she’s has like 5 marriage proposals (most of them silly but still).

There are more religious talks and while I don’t like it, I can take a fair amount in older books because they are older and it’s sort of to be expected, but it really started to get on my nerves here, especially since so much of it was out of Anne’s mouth.

I don’t know. I just just so excited for it, and it ended up not being much? I think I have to approach the next books as collection of stories about characters that happen to be around Anne.

EDIT: There’s a whole chapter about how the girls—including Anne—try to kill a stray cat that keeps following her around but after failing like 3 times, she adopts him, and another character says she’s glad because while you have to kill kittens otherwise there would be too many of them, an adult cat should be cherished. It was quite clearly Of the Time, but still a WTF moment lol

Another super enjoyable read

Just as amazing as the previous ones.

The only thing that really disgusted me was when they tried to murder Rusty and when the neighbor murdered the dog.

4/5 stars, full review to come! Not enough Gilbert for my taste, I’m afraid.


Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Pacing: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
Enjoyment: 4/5