A heart wrenching portrayal of the cruel realities suffered by many during the first world war. The anxiety and pain and strenuous worry mixed with the almost guilty moment of jot amidst the sea of loss and grief were done so well it made the book hard to read at moments. But I am glad I did, it was a worthy send off for the series.

First time reading this since pre-teen years. It gives an interesting insight into how WWI impacted the lives of families in Canada/PEI (which is in some ways similar to the Anzac experience) and the stress and emotional turmoil of the years of war, and postwar attitudes and meaning-making relating to the war and lives lost. The character development of Rilla and the Blythe boys (not so much the other girls, who are mostly off at college) is quite lovely, as they rise to the occasions that they find themselves facing. Like in the previous book, Anne is a bit of a shadow, with only glimpses of her girlhood personality. She seems to have been subsumed and subdued by motherhood, which is hard to imagine from the earlier books. It seems likely that the same fate awaits Rilla. Like the previous Anne of GG books, it’s not very diverse and there’s no mention of the indigenous history or peoples of PEI; there’s some disadvantage and misfortune around the edges, but most of the characters are comfortable, well educated and everyone seems to be assumed to be white. 

I first read this novel when I was Rilla's âge at the end, 19, and living in that "French city with a name impossible to pronounce, that those heathens Runs dared bomb the church", (the martyr Reims cathedral, in the immortal words of Susan Baker. 

Perhaps by fear that each reading would

kill dear Walter again

, it was the only one I had never reread till now, ten years later. 

Well it was as sad and poignant as I remembered, and I did cry again. Rilla is a sweet girl, the portrait of the Canadian home front movingly detailed. I've grown up and lived all my life in those places laboured by bombs and trenches and the idea of so many young men from away, sometimes beyond the seas, dying here for the ideal we hopefully, somehow, someway still live on, never fails to deeply move me. I don't mind LMM's text to be offensively pro-war to modern ears. Written in 1921, it gives a beautiful meaning to the infinitely painful sacrifice suffered just three years prior. That meaning was needed to merely survive the sheer horror of it then. 

Points docked for the needless death of a cat (no, even the most understanding 21th century ears can't find it splendid or sweet as initially described) and mostly the lack of romance between Rilla and her barely there love interest, present in the first chapter and dancing one dance with a fourteen yo before reappearing magically in the last chapter fully enamored. Not convincing, especially not when LMM offered us so many believable romances before and the Anne and Albert multi-novels storyline.

Karen Savage's reading is perhaps a bit too fast paced for my taste, but clear and full of feeling, giving each character their own voice. Absolutely lovely, and I'm thankful for all her work on LibriVox.