So, I'm a mess. No really.

For a long while I wasn't planning on reading this book because I'll be honest Rilla was my least favourite of all the Ingleside children. Not because she was the youngest but because honestly, she was very annoying and whiny. But as I am working on a project about the Anne of Green Gables as a whole, I couldn't just put off this book forever.

It was heart-aching. Seriously. I teared up all through it! It was of course filled with war propaganda, but since it was being told from the perspective of Canadian families whose boys actually fought and died in World War I, it made sense.

What I was most impressed with, however, is Rilla's character development. I started out not liking her at all, but by the end of the books, I found myself not just liking her but actually adoring her. It was impressive and gradual and I applaud L. M. Montgomery for that. 

So much so that this was shaping to be a 5-star read. Until the last couple chapters. Why? 

Spoiler-free version: No one is safe in this book.
Spoiler-version:

Why in the world does L. M. Montgomery hate cats?? Huh? We get two cat deaths at the very end of the book while the dog comes out as a loyal loveable hero. And one of the two deaths was especially brutal!

Overall, I would still recommend reading the book (but especially give the version narrated by Barbara Caruso a try because she's phenomenal) but make sure to check out trigger warnings first!

I expected to enjoy this, but it was a surprise miss for me. It's a nostalgia read, really - for which I had no nostalgia, and which does not, and was not intended to, hold up that well as a standalone novel.

Part of that is my fault for coming in on the final volume of the series; I've read the early volumes several times but I skipped (or read so long ago I've forgotten) the two proceeding this one, so I had less stored up affection for these characters that the author might've been reasonably counting on. The cast were babies in those books, was my reasoning, and besides I'd heard this volume focused on Rilla, who had been too young to do much in past volumes.

Rilla did get a lot of time on the page, as might be expected, but I have to say, the volume might as well have been titled "Susan of Ingleside" as anything. That's not a critique, necessarily, as I didn't mind Susan, particularly when compared with some of the vipers that filled out the cast (Irene and Sophia spring to mind) but at the same time, Rilla didn't get the same detailed, focused development her mother did in the earlier books. Only the highlights of the Red Cross Juniors, for instance, as compared to chapters given to Anne's Improvers. Several chapters dedicated to Jims, which were fine. (It's entirely natural to the time period, but I have to say I wasn't wild to see Rilla's parentification shoved onto her with so little compassion.) There was some small town doings, and some girlhood antics, but really a lot of the book was Susan reacting to wartime news.

This focus on the war is actually what I was most interested in and most expecting from the novel and it's hard to say I didn't get it, but not quite in the way I wanted. I think this comes down to pacing. Presumably the author knew from the start we had a long way to go, so we jump pretty quickly through events, as compared to the relaxed, day-to-day pace of Little Women (another "women on the home front" novel) or indeed, Anne of Green Gables. 

Ultimately, however, that might've been simply a mercy, both to the characters and to the author herself, writing as she was only a couple years after the armistice. My interest coming into the novel was what day to day life was like during WWI, and an answer of "anxious, tedious, and slow" is likely the simple truth. 

Along these same lines, part of the pathos of the volume is knowing there was a second World War looming. Perhaps this is an American perspective, or a modern one, but it's hard to relate to the hope, urgency, and finality the characters naturally felt about the conflict and its resolution. The story really is nearly fatalistically tragic when read with that in mind.

For all that, apart from Irene's existence, I have only one real gripe with the book but it was enough to knock the whole thing out of 3 stars.

Why, on God's green earth, was it necessary to kill two cats within two pages of each other, right near the ending? Why, particularly, do that and then have Wonderdog Monday on practically the next page?

That scene had been built up the entire novel and I was wholly taken out of it, culminating overall in a flat and somewhat embittered end to a read that I probably should've bailed out of earlier.

A very beautiful way to end the series this book was. This book is the most sad out of all of them since World War One occurs but it shows how strong the Blythes truly are. The main character is the youngest of Anne’s children Rilla and she is very loveable we get to see her truly grow through out the duration of the novel. And that last line was truly heartfelt