Emily's Quest

Emily #3

by L.M. Montgomery, Christine Kiphart (Narrator)

Emily knows she's going to be a great writer. She also knows that she and her childhood sweetheart, Teddy Kent, will conquer the world together. But when Teddy leaves home to pursue his goal to become an artist at the School of Design in Montreal, Emily's world collapses. With Teddy gone, Emily agrees to marry a man she doesn't love ... as she tries to banish all thoughts of Teddy. In her heart, Emily must search for what being a writer really means....

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Romance, Canada, Childrens

9 pages, Audiobook

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Lucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908.

Montgomery was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911. She had three children and wrote close to a dozen books while she was living in the Leaskdale Manse before the family moved to Norval, Ontario in 1926. She died in Toronto April 24, 1942 and was buried at Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, God, Emily, shut up.

I am only giving this two stars because I'm really proud of Emily for writing and gaining success with her short stories, and eventually, a novel! She works so hard, and goes through a lot of struggles (late, depressing nights, being on death's door, etc.). But damn, girl, your love life is a mess, and you are making it so.

(1) Dean. And **SPOILERS** (Though I guess the novel thing was already a spoiler, but if you didn't know that was happening, that's a bit more on you.) He proposes when Emily feels like she no longer has a chance with Teddy. Emily accepts and they buy a house and decorate it and then she pulls out of it all. Which thank goodness she did! But still, Emily, how could you be so dumb?? Dean? For real? He is such an ass, and reveals himself to be even more so when he tells her that her first book was actually fabulous (you know, the book she threw in the fire b/c at first he said it wasn't good at all. I hate you, Dean, with the fire of a thousand suns.

(2) Ilse. Emily, your best friend is horrible. For most of the book I was convinced she knew you loved Teddy (b/c DUH) and she was just trying a bunch of clever ways to pull it out of you. But, nope, that's not it. She gives up on Perry and becomes engaged to Teddy. WHHHAAAAATTTT? I hated this so much. Not as much as I hate Dean, but I felt like, Girls? Are you really best friends? Your friendship is horrible. And you are partly to blame, Emily. Communicate your feelings maybe????

(3) Teddy. I cannot even with you.

(4) Emily. You are just as dumb as Teddy. I suppose it's good you do end up together after all (after three or four opportunities to admit their love; honestly, it was maddening); you really deserve each other.

Everybody talks about how great this book is because it's dark, depressing, mature, etc., and that can be quite a departure from the usual Montgomery books. But I didn't feel like that at all. It just felt like a giant lesson in why you should just express your feelings. And, yes, I understand this was a different time, but Emily was really just being silly to me. Teddy is whistling for you--just go. Teddy is trying to hold your hand--just hold hands. You feel like it's weird that he didn't write you a letter. You can just, I don't know, say that in a letter to him? Stop being so Victorian and weird, Emily. It's exhausting.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third and final book of a lesser-known series by the author of Anne of Green Gables. The Anne books are more popular, but the Emily books are deeper and darker, and some of my favorite young adult literature. Like Anne, Emily is an orphan. Finding herself alone in the world, she goes to live with conservative relations. The three books chart her coming of age, her college years and her professional endeavors, and are excellently written. Emily is a character of ups and downs -- people who dismiss L.M. Montgomery as a flowery girl's writer have never read the Emily books (or are idiots). When she finally achieves hard-won and often bittersweet success (in life, in work, in love), you are soaring with her.

Montgomery's work is constantly under-estimated, and the way the books are marketed doesn't help (the flowery script, the swoony illustrations). There are many layers at work in her stories, and some pioneering feminist concepts tucked in between the deep appreciation of nature, the commentary on the stuffy contemporary society of her day, and the delightful, well-drawn characters.

[Stephanie Sun · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Well, I never could have believed that a pack of lies could sound as much like the real truth as that book does."

Like the handsome, ambitious boys-next-door that L.M. Montgomery's heroines love to love, Emily Byrd Starr had the bald luck of getting there first. She is the author avatar for me, and I will accept no substitutes until the day I die: Nate Zuckerman, Grady Tripp, Charlie Citrine, Harriet Vane, Briony Tallis, Stephen Daedalus, Buddy Glass, Leo Gursky, Tom Healy... it was fun, but you can let yourselves out.

There is no faster way for my eyes to glaze over reading a book synopsis than to read that the MC "is secretly writing what he hopes will be his masterwork." Mostly because writing about writing has already been done a dozen times well and a few thousand times badly, but also because none of these other writer-characters seem half as alive or full of single-minded drive and joy for their vocation as Montgomery's precocious, proud, witty yet dreamy young Canadian authoress.

All three books of the Emily series were written in the 1920s, and although they take place prior to what was then known as the Great War, this provenance shows between the lines. Book 3, Emily's Quest, is, despite the happy ending, one of Montgomery's darkest, rivaling even her devastating World War I novel, Rilla of Ingleside.

Lucy Maud Montgomery (god-fearing Christian, minister's wife, creator of plucky heroines who teach uptight spinsters How To Love) writes knowingly here of the secret pleasures and warped mind games of codependent relationships, of sleepless nights spent staring into the abyss of one's own future, of arrogance, of death, of bitterness, and of the claustrophobia of compromise.

Handsome, ambitious, boy-next-door Teddy Kent spends much of the book painting and flirting his way through Montreal and Europe, leaving Emily to figure out how to build a life around the day to day grind of writing fiction alone. Emily's Quest ends up being a pretty straightforward hero's quest, but Montgomery always finds just the right detail or spin on things to meld the rigorous structure of the hero's quest seamlessly to her rural Canadian late Victorian milieu.

We begin with an enthusiastic, optimistic bite of the apple, "No more cambric tea," Emily declares, explaining that she has finally been deemed by her head guardian, Aunt Elizabeth, old enough to have caffeine.

Soon enough Emily's enthusiasm and optimism are tested, and tested, and tested. Emily loses two of her biggest mentors and champions—one to death and one to disappointed passion. The rejection slips "damning with faint praise" pile up, and inspiration is increasingly hard to come by. Emily begins to believe that she is just a moderately successful scribbler of pot-boilers, and nothing more.

I love how quiet and slow the turnaround is, how ironic and bittersweet and true to Emily's personality and values. When Emily's first book is published, we are treated to a delightful rundown of the critical responses, paired with her relations' pricelessly folksy attempts at interpretation:

"'This book lacks spontaneity. It is saccharine and melodramatic, mawkish and naive.'

'I know I fell into the well,' said Cousin Jimmy pitifully. 'Is that why I can't make head or tail out of that?'"

There is so much great writing advice in this book, both of the page-level and existential kind. Montgomery gets writing. She knows how to describe writing, how to show us that Emily is a great writer, how to show us what kinds of success are attainable and what are not for a great writer, and how lonely writing has to be despite its occasional thrills of connection.

Montgomery gets people too, all different kinds: bad fathers, brides with cold feet, solicitous women who want to make you in their own image, young men on the make.

And if you don't like her happy ending, well, Montgomery has already had some fun with you some 100 pages back, via the character of loony fellow writer Mark Greaves:

"'[Y]ou must learn never to write happy endings—never. I will teach you. I will teach you the beauty and artistry of sorrow and incompleteness.'"

Teach Lucy Maud Montgomery Emily Byrd Starr about writing? Ha! Montgomery's prose can be purple as a plum, but there is nothing left to teach a writer who knows just how much rope to give her characters to hang themselves with.

[Jennis Andelin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the worst of the whole series. It was dark and depressing the whole time. The plot was really sad, and all through this book I just HATED Ilse. She was portrayed as a shallow, silly girl with no feelings for Emily or Teddy. She's obsessed with something the whole time. I liked the first two because of Emily and Ilse's good friendship. They both trust and stick up for each other. However, in the third, it seems as though she doesn't care for anything or anyone. And it's weird how Emily and Ilse are supposed to be such good friends, but Ilse doesn't sense Emily's love for Teddy EVER. How could someone be so stupid? And she's so malicious and it seems like she wants to ruin Emily's life. Finally she's engaged to Teddy and then runs off to Perry while he's in the hospital supposedly "dying." How could someone so shallow and mean and uncaring love anyone like that? I just hated her, which was sad because in the other two I really liked her personality. The third book ruined all her good characteristics and her bad ones took over.

Teddy and Emily's relationship? Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. They didn't know how to communicate, and they can't read each other at all. I was mad at both of them the whole time for being so dumb. I guess people are really like that, but still...

Dean? I hated him. Sorry to be a hater...but he was so self-absorbed, selfish, and cynical. When he lies to Emily about her story and then she goes and burns it...I wanted to put the book down. Why did she trust him so much?? Emily was such a bad judge of character.

The plot was SO SAD. oh....my...goodness. Emily loses her good outlook on life and I feel like she becomes sarcastic and cynical. And I get sick of all the writing. It seems like her life is only this: writing, get up, walk in the garden with Dean, talk, eat, sleep, write. I mean, it gets to a point where I hate her life. And when it says that she was content and happy with her cats and her life at new moon, everyone knew that she was going to be an old maid now, the only times that she was sick of her life was when she was reading Teddy and Ilse's letters and adventures, yada yada yada. How can you not hate her life? And all these sad things happen and the happy parts are few and far between. Mr. Carpenter dies, Emily falls down the stairs and cuts open her foot with sewing scissors (*shudder*), Emily has a horrible life...etc. The humor is really weird sometimes...like the one part where the man comes and proposes to her because he falls madly in love with her picture...and during his proposal he talks about how she ruined his story but he still loves her...what the...?

I cried during this book. I cried because Emily had a horrible, boring, depressing life. Everyone judged her wrongly and she NEVER tried to defend herself! Sure, the ending is happy, but that's like what...five pages of happiness? The rest is really depressing and hard to get through. I hate almost all the characters at some point in the story. The only reason I kept reading was because I had to see how it ended. I couldn't stand how the whole time the tone was depressing and nostalgic, and the story just ends with tons of loose ends. It was my least favorite L.M. book so far.

[Helene Jeppesen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This conclusion to the Emily trilogy was in my opinion the best book in this series. Emily fascinated me because she made some questionable decisions that I didn't immediately understand, but as the story continued I grew to understand and appreciate her.
This series has all in all been such a great surprise to me because it beats "Anne of Green Gables" in so many ways. We get a main character who develops, who has hopes and who grows up over the span of three books. Emily goes from being a young orphan to an adult, reflective woman who doesn't just go with the flow. The setting changes throughout the trilogy as well as the characters, and all of that is was makes it the better series in my opinion.

[Sana · Rating 4 out of 5]

امیدوارم تمام دوستان حالشون خوب باشه.
سه‌گانه ی امیلی در دوران تلخی خوندمش اما باعث شد حواسم رو پرت کنه.
از این زندگی سخت.
این جلد رو دو روزه خوندم اینقدر متن کتاب کشش داشت که یک لحظه هم نتونستم بذارمش کنار.
خوشحالم که این دفعه به قولم عمل کردم و این سه گانه رو خوندم.
به امید اینکه قصه های جزیره رو هم بخونم.🪴📚🤍

[Ali Book World · Rating 5 out of 5]

و پایان ماجراهای امیلی...

پنج ستاره‌ی طلایی؛
به خاطر قوی بودن امیلی
به خاطر تحمل سختی‌ها
به خاطر قوی بودنش
به خاطر تلاش کردن های بی‌وقفه‌ش
به خاطر خستگی ناپذیر بودنش
به خا��ر شکستن قلبش
به خاطر نویسنده بودنش
به خاطر افکار و روح بلندش
به خاطر شوخ‌طبع بودنش
به خاطر حاضر جواب بودنش😂
به خاطر مهربونی‌هاش
و
به خاطر قلم بی‌نظیر مونتگمری

[Nastaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

دوست داشتم هر سه کتاب رو بخونم و بعد ریویو بنویسم.
حدودا یه ماهه که هروقت فرصتی پیدا می‌کنم و از درس و کار و ورزش خسته میشم امیلی می‌خونم. خیلی دوست داشتم سریع‌تر هر سه کتاب رو بخونم و بفهمم آخرش چی میشه اما خوشحالم این کارو نکردم. روند کتابخونیم رو آهسته کردم و از هر صفحه و هر جمله‌‌ی این کتاب لذت بردم. به خاطر آوردم که چطور تا دوران دبیرستان هرروز می‌نوشتم و شعر می‌گفتم و آرزوی نویسندگی رو داشتم و این برای من ارزشمندترین پیامد خوندن این کتاب بود.
شاید من هیچ وقت نتونم بنویسم اما تمام خیالپردازی‌ها و حتی جرقه‌های امیلی رو درک می‌کنم و از این که مونتگمری اون سر دنیا تونسته شخصیتی خلق کنه که احساسات دوران کودکی و نوجوانی من رو تحربه کرده خوشحال شدم.
کتاب اول پر از توصیفات نوستالژیک بود. ابتدای کتاب یه مقدار عجیب شروع شد و حدودا ۴۰-۵۰ صفحه طول کشید تا با فضای کتاب «دوست» بشم. همین باعث شد بهش ۴ ستاره یدم. اما ادامه‌ی داستان عالی بود. امیلی کوچولو واقعا خوب توصیف شده بود. اون بخش دوستی با رودا عااااالی بود! هر دختری حتما همچین دوست ناجوری تو دوران مدرسه داشته!
فضای کتاب دوم خیلی شبیه دوران مدرسه‌ی خودم بود. بدجنسی‌ اطرافیان، سختی‌ها، فضای تاریک محل اقامت و...
تو ذهن من نیومون و بلرواتر مثل بهشت بود و شروزبری مثل یه شهر شلوغ. حتی توصیف سرزمین ایستادگی هم برام چندان جذاب نبود، مثل یه پارک بود وسط شهر!
نمی‌دونم چرا کتاب دوم چندان به دلم ننشست. یعنی کتاب اول و سوم رو خیلییی بیشتر دوست دارم. اما بهرحال کتاب دوم واقعا لیاقت ۴ ستاره رو داشت.
کتاب سوم خیلی عجیب بود. اوایل کتاب سوم حس می‌کردم قراره به این کتاب ۳ ستاره بدم. اما حدودا یک سوم کتاب رو که خوندم به این نتیجه رسیدم که لایق ۵ ستاره‌ست. روند بزرگ شدن امیلی رو کاملا میشد حس کرد. حالا امیلی ۲۰ ساله هم سن خود من بود و من کاملا درکش می‌کردم. تمام توصیفاتش در مورد پاییزها و زمستونای سرد و طولانی نیومون رو درک می‌کردم. حس تنهایی و دور افتادگی امیلی رو درک می‌کردم. همه چیز در مورد این کتاب عالی بود. با این کتاب خندیدم و گریه کردم... اما پایان کتاب اونقد سرهم بندی شده بود که با خودم فکر کردم لایق ۵ ستاره نیست.
انگار نویسنده عجله داشت که این داستان زیبا رو سریعا تموم کنه و من از این عجله اصلا خوشم نیومد. دلم میخواست کتاب سوم حجمی مثل کتاب اول داشته باشه و همونقد دقیق همه چیز رو توصیف کرده باشه و برای پایان کتاب حسابی وقت گذاشته باشه.
بهرحال امیلی یه انتخاب عالی برای گذروندن قرنطینه‌س. میشه با این مجموعه چند ساعتی رو از زندگی آلوده و کرونایی دور شد و بین افراها و صنوبرهای جزیره‌ی پرنس ادوارد قدم زد و درخشش بلر واتر رو تماشا کرد. واقعا کاش می‌شد یه مدتی جزیره‌ی پرنس ادوارد زندگی کنم :)

[Katie Ziegler (Life Between Words) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. But am giving it 4 stars because Emily drove me BONKERS for like 3/4 of the book. She was so stubborn and proud and so much could have been avoided if she’d just employed some basic communication with everyone. So annoying. But amazing storytelling, amazing writing, and amazing characters as per usual. I just love LM Montgomery so very much.

Also, can we just talk about how Dean is a big ol’ manipulative predatory creeper?!?!?

[Rojita Rojîta · Rating 5 out of 5]

"یک ریویوی عاشقانه برای امیلیِ نیومون"

شب‌های بلند پاییز همیشه اولین انتخابم یک رمان کلاسیک عاشقانه بوده و هست و احتمالن خواهد بود.
امروز که سه گانه‌ی امیلی رو تموم می‌کنم
بیشتر از 5 ماه از شروع جلد اولش میگذره!
اون روزها در بدترین حال روحی و روزهای سخت زندگیم امیلی رو انتخاب کردم چون فکر میکردم خوندنش آسونه و تمرکز زیادی نمی‌خواد اما همون جلد اولش 4 ماه طول کشید تا بتونم تمومش کنم.
این منی که امروز جلد آخر رو تموم کردم و با گریه کتابو بستم (بعد از مدتها با یک کتاب گریه کردم شاید چون بعضی موقعیت‌ها با امیلی همذات پنداری می‌کردم) با منی که جلد اول رو شروع کردم زمین تا آسمون فرق کرده و حالم خیلی بهتره. نه اینکه امیلی حالم رو خوب کرده باشه، نه!
من این 5 ماه یک مسیر سخت و فشرده رو از سرگذروندم که همیشه فکر میکردم تو زندگیم این مراحل قفل باشه
اما اینکه تو همه‌ی اون لحظات سخت و کشنده و بعدن آسون و زنده کننده، امیلی همراهم بود (هر چند کم و یا کوتاه و حتی این اواخر دوست نداشتم تموم بشه) باعث میشه تا روزی که بتونم فکر کنم و به یاد بیارم جایی در گوشه‌ای از قلبم داشته باشه.
اونجایی که توی کتاب میگه:
"هر شب به خودش می‌گفت فردا دیگر طاقتش تمام می‌شود اما فردا که می‌آمد باز زندگی جریان داشت" این رو من زندگی‌ش کردم.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Emily of New Moon I began to have an idea of why I've never loved and spent time with Emily Byrd Starr as I have with Anne Shirley or Pat Gardiner. I began to suss it out then, but I loved the book and it still seemed strange to me. With Emily Climbs it began to seem clearer – that dark streak running through it, I said, and left it at that. But it is only on finishing Emily's Quest that I fully understand – and that is partly because I know, on closing this book, I will be leaving it closed for possibly another twenty years. Whether I have the moral courage to read it then will be interesting to see – almost like Emily's fortitude in reading her letter from her fourteen-year-old self to herself at twenty-four, except unlike the very young Emily I know the pain within the pages aimed twenty years ahead.

There is pain in the other books, deep and seemingly impassible, and I always cry over the other books (Matthew…). I recognize myself in Valancy, heaven knows, and Anne and Pat, and so their pain is very real to me. But it is their pain. The pain that laces through Emily is personal. I have never read L.M. Montgomery's journals or memoirs or letters, so I don't know if my inference is true, but it feels as though a great deal of Emily comes from Lucy Maude. I find it hard to believe, for one thing, that the snippets of reviews Emily reads to her staunchly supportive family aren't true to life. My feeling is that while the specifics of the circumstances of the years spanned in Quest are wholly fictional, wholly Emily's own, the emotions are not in the least fictional. Fictionalized.

After decades loving Anne and Pat and Valancy, still I can't help but identify most strongly of all with Emily – and it is the Emily in this book that brings me to tears. Alone, and left alone, and in no small way responsible for that aloneness, but knowing that there was no other action or set of actions that would have ever been tolerable in any given situation. "I have not heard even from Ilse for a long time. She has forgotten me, too." I know that feeling well. That was the feeling – of having been forgotten in general, compounded with actually being told by someone I held dear that he had forgotten about me, that caused me to – as someone wise recently said – be still and lock the gate from the inside. I walked away then and made some decisions and will hold to them. My locks might get a bit rusty.

Facing the daily struggle against the inner demon editor who insists that every word written is trash, or worse, that no one will read this nonsense, that … well. She was, obviously, far more successful in ignoring or silencing that voice than I ever have been, or, at times, ever hope to be. It's funny, though, and I apologize for a spoiler, but even Emily's greatest literary triumph to date was painful to me; I haven't finished a book, much less had it rejected by uncounted publishers, but I know that if I did, and gave up as Emily does, there is no Uncle Jimmy figure in my life to pull it out of storage and send it out again.

So I wonder, in a way, that I didn't love these books more when I was the age of Emily (book two). An artist of extraordinary talent, when I wanted to be and planned to be an artist; a writer heroine, when I already was scribbling a little here and there; hard work leading to success and happiness. It should all have appealed, then. Now … the pain is too real, and the abruptly happy ending not as easy to swallow. It's a beautiful book, and a beautiful trilogy … but not for the young and hopeful, or the … what? Not-so-young and futile-feeling. Perhaps it's for those who have been through the pain and persevered better than I have. For me? I think Emily is going to go into a box, and the box is going to be set at the back of a shelf, and the dust will collect on it, and – no. I won't even express the hope that one day I'll read them again without the ache. On the shelf they'll stay.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know in my heart that I cannot adequately express how I feel about this book.

The series as a whole is amazing. I have never read a story where I so wholly absorbed a character's feelings as I did Emily Starr's. And I must say, the final book in the trilogy broke my heart over, and over, and over. I felt so much anguish over this book.

But L.M. Montgomery done something special. Reading this alongside Anne of Green Gables, it is evident how much her writing has evolved since the Anne series (1908 versus the 1920s). Montgomery cut back a lot of her flowery passages seen in Anne and brought forth challenging and bold themes into the Emily books. You can see how the changing attitudes of the Roaring Twenties influence Montgomery's ideals in that the books contain new themes like sexuality, depression, and human cruelty. This book particularly introduces a number of characters that are not to be simplified. I don't think I will ever be able to figure out how I feel about Dean Priest.

There are so many things I wish I could say about this book and this series, but reading it was honestly kind of overwhelming in a way that makes it difficult for me to find words for why it hit me the way it did. That phenomenon is a particular gift of Montgomery's because it is evident that she felt things keenly in her life. Her ability to manifest those feelings in her characters is all too effective. While I think this is possibly her strongest work, I don't think it would appeal to a wide audience, especially if one enters into it expecting something with the levity of Anne of Green Gables.

[Duane Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful book by Lucy Maud Montgomery. What an underrated writer, and what a shame. There are millions of readers, especially young readers, that would love these wonderful books. Emily's Quest is the third and final book in the series, Emily of New Moon. Emily Byrd Starr is just as precocious and loveable as Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables. But she is more serious minded and determined than Anne, and reading of her ups and downs, her hopes and dreams, and her undying love of Teddy, has been a joy and a privilege. If I had to find a fault, it would be the ending. It ended well, that was fine, but it ended to abruptly. There should have been an epilogue, maybe even another book. But alas, not to be.

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes and albeit that I have indeed always enjoyed reading Emily's Quest and have also found it a reasonable and generally satisfying enough conclusion to the Emily of New Moon trilogy (and especially with regard to Emily's writing career and that she has finally managed to reach the pinnace of success when her novel The Moral of the Rose is released by the Warehams, by one of North America's most famous and well known publishing houses), I also do NOT particularly (if at all) enjoy (and have actually and in fact NEVER all that much been able to personally completely accept) that L.M. Montgomery has made Dean Priest (one of my absolute favourite characters from the first novel, from Emily of New Moon in particular) into such a jealous and disgustingly petty individual, into someone who in Emily's Quest is actually depicted by L.M. Montgomery as being so insanely jealous of even Emily's writing that he tells her a blatant falsehood about the supposed lack of narrative quality in a novel she is in the process of completing, causing Emily to not only believe him and consider herself totally talentless and worthless as a writer but to also burn her manuscript, fall down the stairs at New Moon and almost consent to marry the individual who has thus shattered her dreams.

But truth be told, while after reading about Dean Priest's transformation from platonic and interesting friend to a very envious, manipulative and much possessive lover and fiancé in Emily’s Quest I am of course (and on the surface) happy that after realising how much she actually both physically and spiritually loves Teddy Kent (and how clinging and overbearing Dean Priest has become), Emily Byrd Starr breaks off her engagement to the latter and yes, that finally after many (often hopeless seeming) struggles, Emily does indeed become Teddy's bride, personally, I have also and ALWAYS found especially Teddy Kent a majorly uninspiring, uninterestingly depicted and featured character in the Emily of New Moon series. And indeed, that at the end of Emily's Quest, Emily and Teddy become a couple (and this even after Teddy was going to marry Emily Byrd Starr's best friend Ilse Burnley and did not only because Ilse basically abandoned him at the altar and eloped with Perry Miller) on an entirely emotional and how much I have never really found Teddy Kent all that interesting and relatable as a character level, I for one would actually and in fact have much preferred to have seen Dean Priest reform himself, conquer his jealousies and to have Emily's Quest end with not Emily and Teddy but with Emily and a newer and improved, less envious by nature Dean as the bridal couple (but then again, this is just my personal preference speaking and in particular the fact that I have never really been all that much enamoured of L.M. Montgomery's rather insipid and flat portrayal of Teddy Kent and I do know and respect that many readers seem to totally be enthralled with and by Teddy and Emily's love story and that they have therefore also naturally found the ending of Emily's Quest and Emily Byrd Starr and Teddy Kent being engaged to be married the perfect and romantic ending to and for the Emily of New Moon trilogy).

[Rikke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tale of a young heroine's quest for succes. It is a tale of ambition and of a young woman obsessed with wordplay and poetry. It is a tale of bleak depression and the writer's block that comes along with it. It is a tale of artistry and the fragility with which art is created. And, of course, it is a tale of love and hope and happiness; a tale of rereading old letters and striving for the bright future, that was once foretold.

“The ghosts of things that never happened are worse than the ghosts of things that did.”

This book has always resonated deeply with me. Even when I was a child who hardly understood that Emily's long period of writer's block is actually a sign of deep depression, and that Ilse's gay adventures with Emily only proves how far they've drifted apart.
I suspect I loved this book dearly back then, because of the love story. The intense attraction between Teddy and Emily; their many misunderstandings; and Dean Priest who creates a place for himself in Emily's sorrow, makes for an epic love story. Add in the admiration of princes, writers and a hidden diamond in the grass – and you have a fairy tale that will enchant any 11-year old.

Teddy Kent will always be one of my favorite heroes; even though upon rereading this, it is hard to explain why. He is, as Ilse would say, selfish. He cares as little for Emily's writing as Dean does, and his characterization seems oddly vague compared to Perry's bursting personality. As Teddy is a quiet creature, who Emily doesn't even dare to look at, fearing to expose her feelings, he is only described through Emily's thoughts, not through direct interaction. Montgomery seems to contrast her characterization; where as Perry and Ilse are often described through direct and merry scenes and rarely in Emily's diary, Teddy's personality is mainly to be found in Emily's diary. In that way, Montgomery allows Emily to describe Teddy. To the reader, he is a creature of Emily's own pen. And therefore, a fragment of her own mind.

“Don't be led away by those howls about realism. Remember-pine woods are just as real as pigsties and a darn sight pleasanter to be in.”

But, while Teddy Kent holds my heart (and Emily's), he has only a small part of this book. This is a tale of an authoress; of wordplay, writing and rewriting, and ultimately a loss of words. Emily falls into depression, lays down her pen and makes a terrible decision. Montgomery spins a vivid tale of how much an artist suffers without ways to express their feelings. Emily is numb for so long, she is willing to marry a man she doesn't love, just so she can let him take hold of her life, leaving her no decisions of her own.
Emily uses Dean cruelly; she adds on to the pain and loneliness, he has experienced through his own life. And while Dean is painted to be bot villain in this, one cannot help but feel sorry for him. Like Mrs. Kent, he falls victim to his own jealousy, the symptom of a broken and a love-starved soul. Like Mrs. Kent, he clings on too tightly. One of the many themes that runs through this book, showcasing the bitter and ugly side of depending on someone too much.

Another reason, this book still resonates with me, is the fine thread of nostalgia that runs through the novel. Emily, staying behind in Blair Water, is constantly confronted with the ghost of things past. Ilse visits in a whirlwind of laughter and colors, and always leaves with a sigh; concluding that the careless summers of their childhood cannot be replicated. Perry keeps proposing to Emily out of sheer habit, Elizabeth, Laura and Jimmy constantly laments that their little Emily has been replaced with a young woman. Even the cats grow old, beloved mentors die and Emily is left alone, feeling deserted and betrayed by time.
When Emily finds the young and hopeful letters of her 14-year old self adressing her 24-year old self, she almost cannot bear to read it. The hope and wonder, the letter is written with, is almost poisonous. The 14-year old Emily envies her older self; and yet the 24-year old Emily finds herself longing to be 14 again. To be a happy child with an endless future.

I almost feel like I'm reading a letter from a younger version of myself, whenever I reread Montgomery's words. I loved these books, and Emily herself, so much as a child, it only takes a reread to take me back. The feeling is bittersweet; leaving me a bit nostalgic myself for times that has long passed, for the 14-year old version of me reading these pages and wondering who I would be at 24. Would I be an author like Emily? Married to the love of my life? A mother? A writer? Both? Neither? While I'm not an Emily, she is a part of me. And has been ever since I read this book for the very first time.

“Never be silent with persons you love and distrust ... Silence betrays.”

[Adrian Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

After two strong books, L.M. Montgomery ruins the finish in this book. People do horrible things to her and break her heart, and she finishes as a very weak version of herself. I can only take so many "miscommunications" as plot devices, and this story has a few too many. Also, we are presented with the fact that Emily loves only Teddy Kent, and can't possibly marry anyone else, but in spite of the fact that Emily really is a well written character, we know very little about Teddy Kent, and so it's hard to believe the fact that they were meant to be together in the end. The first two books deserved a better ending than this.

[Els · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, what was this? A love kite? A crooked square with a starburst projecting from our heroine? Oh no. It's a love squid. Good grief. And the whole second sight thing really became a bit much.

It looked like this. Horror.

I beg thee, friends, let no such love appendages squirm their way into your writing. No purple eyes with flaked gold sprinkled atop, either.

Pshaw, I like Montgomery. But why, why must she insert an Unbelievable? Her characters are my friends (or enemies) because they're breathing. Emily is stardust.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is dragged down by Dean, who is The Worst.

I always give Dean my stories to read. I can't help doing it, although he always brings them back with no comment, or, worse, than no comment - faint praise. It has become a sort of obsession with me to make Dean admit I can write something worthwhile in its line. That would be a triumph. But unless and until he does, everything will be dust and ashes. Because - he knows.

THE ABSOLUTE WORST.

I don't think I've ever thought Montgomery was writing a series about abuse or depression before. I'm not entirely sure she is - this reads as more specific tortured-artist to me - and yet I could be persuaded of it.

It's not just that I don't like Dean. This book is oddly distant because of its diary format - something I didn't find true in the two previous books. But here there's more of a sense that Emily is censoring herself. And that reminds me of all the reasons I don't like the artificial, telling-the-story-to-a-diary point of view.

I also find this to be uneven. It's not that it documents the ups and downs of life as much as it gets the tragedy out of the way before the happily-ever-after, which means all of it loses its power a little; the most evocative moments happen earlier on, and then the narrative deflates a little. Mrs. Kent is the one redeeming factor toward the end of the book, and even that is less memorable to me this time around.

Mr. Carpenter does still give great writing advice:

No use trying to please - critics. Live under your own hat. Don't be - led away - by those howls about realism. Remember - pine woods are just as real as - pigsties - and a darn sight pleasanter to be in.

Emily's loneliness should be relatable - look at her letter to herself at 24! The comments from her relatives about her age! Dean's "You've never lived" comment (MONSTER) - but instead she's positioned as a tortured artist and her loneliness as unique and special. She gets critical raves (and sniffy negative reviews) and delightful congratulations from Miss Royal and petty congratulations from Dean, and all of it makes her a more distant character. I want to rejoice with her and cry for her but instead I can't quite feel what she's feeling. She lives so much in her head and her writing is so solitary by design that Montgomery almost backs herself into a corner here. Somehow the events in Emily's life lose their immediacy and impact.

It's deliberate, of course: this is the book where she loses almost everyone close to her. But she feels less like Emily as a result. That beginning - "Emily was a chaser of rainbows" - is so pitch perfect, and I can't find that Emily in the rest of the book.

I feel so out-of-sorts writing this: it clashes so much with my memory of this book, which I remember liking so much. This is still one of the saddest sentences in the English language -

But oh, for her unborn Seller of Dreams!

- DEAN, YOU ARE THE WORST - and yet my main reaction this time around is: Teddy, why did you whistle again?

PS: I felt so prescient when I read this:

Something nice happened today. I feel pleasantly exhilarated. Madison's took my story, A Flaw in the Indictment!!!! Yes, it deserves some exclamation points after it to a certainty. If it were not for Mr. Carpenter I would write it in italics. Italics! Nay, I'd use capitals.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Emily's Quest was just so incredibly depressing and frustrating, I really found it difficult to read with any pleasure. The misunderstandings between Emily and Teddy (and Ilse) are so very obvious, and could have been so easily sorted out. Instead, the creepy Dean Priest steps in and persuades Emily to marry him after she is badly hurt in an accident (which Priest unwittingly precipitated, but then used to his advantage).

The final third of the book was the hardest to read as the misunderstandings are compounded, and the friends grow apart. It is only in the final chapter that things are made right, but even this is rushed and doesn't actually feel like the redemption of the star crossed lovers in the way it should.

Unlike the other LMM books, I can't actually see myself reading this again, as it actually made me feel uncomfortable and sad.

[Ayda · Rating 3 out of 5]

خب مثل اینکه بزرگسالی ها همیشه ناامید کننده ان و بزرگسالی امیلی بدتر از همشون. با وجود اینکه توی کتاب اونقدرها تدی رو نشناختیم و حتی به نظرم دین جالب تر از تدی بود و محض رضای خدا یکی از شخصیت‌ها جرئت صحبت کردن راجع به احساساتش رو نداشت ولی... ولی دوستش داشتم چون ادامه‌ی دو جلدی بود که بهم حس زندگی رو بخشیده بود و درک میکنم که زندگی همیشه قرار نیست درخشان و قانع کننده باشه حتی توی این داستان... :")

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars
I cannot remember the last time I felt such a burning urge to box a character's ears.
Emily, you are an idiot and I do not understand thee.
The end.

No, but seriously, this book is all rush and romance. I did not understand Emily's refusal to go to New York in the last book. I still don't. I think it was cowardly of her. And so, when she was lonely and feeling left behind, I could not sympathize.
But here is my confession: I've spent a lot of my life feeling like I needed to break away from the stereotype that good homeschool girls stay home and write wholesome books and get married. I fought it when I went to college far away. When I studied abroad. When I repeatedly moved across the country. When I attended law school. I've fought my butt off for my own version of New York so Emily throwing herself a pity party because she decided to stay home and no one else did...
I understood it. And I don't despise Emily for her decision. I despise her reasoning because she uses her muse as an excuse to hide behind. And then freaks out when the expected consequences of her decision come. Anyway, can you tell it touched a cord?

But I was willing to walk down the path not taken with Emily and cheer on her pursuit of fame. Except this book isn't really about her pursuit of fame. It is about Love.
And it made me want to bash my head against a wall.
Can nobody freaking communicate?!
The only reason this book isn't getting one star is because it didn't actually ~spoiler~ marry anyone to the wrong person. It just threatened to do so for pages and pages.
It was so angsty. And so unnecessary. And somehow also so rushed? The actual romance took FORfreakingEVER but Emily gets a steady stream of gentleman callers that all blurred together.

Anyway, I did not have much sympathy for this plot. Thankfully, it is shorter than the first two.

[Rachel Aranda · Rating 2 out of 5]

2-2.5 stars

I can’t properly explain how badly this book went for me when compared to the wonderful time I had reading the previous two books in the Emily series. "Emily's Quest" was the worst book out of the trilogy, in my opinion, and felt like an endless chore to read and listen to.

None of the characters seemed to be who they were when we started out with them in the series. Of course they were children and we see them grow into adults so changes were bound to happen. The sequel gives examples of this while still having the characters be recognizable. Emily, Teddy and at times Ilse too were all changed into typical whiny, dense, and annoying characters that kept making stupid mistakes due to pride and lack of communication. What best friends can't be honest with each other?! I expect these kind of characters in a daytime television soap opera but not in the Emily series.

Everything seemed to be done in a lazy and hasty way. Maybe the author got tired of writing the series because I didn't feel the care that was put into "Emily of New Moon" and "Emily Climbs" was given to "Emily's Quest." It was a major disappointment to me as I really loved the series until I read this book. It was the last book I started in 2019 so I felt an obligation to finish it. This book will remind me why I’ve installed the new DNF rule in my reading life. It feels like “utter nonsense” as Aunt Elizabeth would put it.

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is painful. Why do they all torture themselves??? My advice is read the last chapter first. Then you can have your happy ending to the other two books. At that point you can decide if you even want to know what happened in the first of the book. You may be better off not knowing.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best thing to come from this book is that it cured me of shipping Laurie/Jo in Little Women .

In both stories, we have a brilliant, fiery young girl who wants to write for a living has two suitors. One is a young, handsome, artsy but shallow man with curly locks. The other man is noticeably older and sadder, and not conventionally handsome, but he understands the heroine’s artistic struggles and he feels things much more deeply than the boy can.

Jo rejects Laurie in favor of Friedrich, and grows as a person because of it. Emily rejects Dean in favor of Teddy, ensuring that she will never again be uncomfortable or reevaluate her worldview ever again. Yippee.

Emily’s Quest is written in Montgomery’s later style—fragmented, full of haunting descriptions and amusing journal entries/letters, but disjointed and sometimes barely coherent.

In this book, Teddy—arguably the blandest man in fiction—goes away to art school in Montreal, and Emily, who can run circles around him mentally, pines for him. She tries to focus on her writing and gets a lot of rejections. She also mourns the loss of her dear teacher and mentor, Mr. Carpenter.

Then a severe injury leaves her laid up for several months, and Dean Priest sits faithfully at her bedside all that while, talking and reading and resonating with her. He admits his true feelings to her, she accepts his offer, they become engaged and buy the Disappointed House that has so fascinated her since moving to Blair Water.

Dean has been nothing but supportive and a little awed, albeit possessive, of Emily so far, but he suddenly turns as dismissive of her writing as Casaubon was of Dorothea’s attempts at scholarship in Middlemarch . It’s completely out of character. It’s meant to make us hate Dean just in time and ship Emily with Teddy “Cardboard Cutout” Kent. I have the highest respect for Maud usually, but this is nothing short of jamming the story through the Ivory Gate. It’s such a cheap, obvious trick that Rick Riordan or Cassandra Clare could use it.

And then, not even halfway through the book, Emily has one of her psychic dreams about Teddy and breaks it off with Dean.

Dean completely disappears from the story after this, and without him it devolves into an inane love square involving Emily, Teddy, Ilse (who goes from being amusing to loathsome in this installment), and Perry. This subplot concludes in one of the very silliest deus ex machinas I’ve ever read.

There are a few triumphant moments. Emily’s first book gets published, and it’s appropriately epic.

She also gets a number of marriage proposals, one from a gothishly handsome and utterly insane writer named Mark Delange Greaves. He shows up out of nowhere and promptly goes back there, but what fun he was! He left a story unfinished, and his publisher gave it to Emily to tie up in order to fit the deadline. Mark hated the grafted ending and went to New Moon to give its writer a piece of his mind, but he winds up smitten with her brilliance and spooky beauty, proposes to her on the spot, and breaks an heirloom crystal goblet when refused before storming back down the hill with his black hair and matching cape flying behind him. He is W.B. Yeats meets Kylo Ren. Seriously, Em, if you don’t want Dean, take this guy. He’s stark raving nuts, and you will never be bored.

But that brings us to the problem here. Dean is Emily’s soulmate, the Yin to her Yang, the Hades to her Persephone, the answer to her question. They fit together perfectly, and Montgomery, in a rare moment for her of not letting the story run its natural course, pries them cruelly and senselessly apart.

I’m glad I read this trilogy and I still dearly love the first two books. But oh, how I wish it had ended differently!

[Hani · Rating 5 out of 5]

چقدر خوندن این کتاب برای من لذت بخش بود...حتی جذابیت بیشتری از دو جلد قبلی داشت...خییییلی دوستش داشتم:)))

[_PARNIAN_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

چون به همون اندازه‌ی امیلی این روزا تنها شدم. چون مثل اون دارم دونه دونه دوستامو از دست میدم. از هم دور میشیم و دنیاهامون جدا میشه؛ چون به اندازه‌ی امیلی در درک عشق و عاشق سرگردونم؛ و چون دارم به اندازه‌ی اون تلاش می‌کنم؛ خوندن دوباره‌ی کتاب خیلی بهم چسبید.
همذات پنداری خاصی با کتاب دارم و حس می‌کنم هر سال یک بار باید بخونمش.

_زن بودن حس خیلی عجیبی دارد عزیزم. اینکه اینقدر عاشق چیزهای فانی باشی.
-الان دارم سه حس مختلف را تجربه می‌کنم. ورای همه آسودگی خیال است. زیر این حس حس دیگری‌ست که انگار اگر قدرت ظهور پیدا نکند شکسته می‌شود. و زیر همه این ها، حس عجیب و خوشایند دیگری‌ است از این بابت که هنوز آزادی‌ام را از دست نداده‌ام.
_عاشقش هستم، عاشقش هستم، عاشقش هستم و نمی‌دانم سال آینده بدون او باید چه کار کنم. از این به بعد همه‌ی فرداهایمان پر از جدایی خواهد بود. دور از هم بزرگ می‌شویم و وقتی هرازگاهی همدیگر را می‌بینیم؛ غریبه ای بیش نخواهیم بود
_امیلی آه کشید. خبر نداشت که سرنوشت پاورچین پاورچین دارد از پله ها بالا می‌آید. گرچه امیلی فکر می‌کرد چیزی که می‌شنود فقط صدای پاهای پسرعموجیمی است.

[Celeste · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating: 2.5 stars. Rounded up out of loyalty to the writer.

Montgomery is an incredibly talented author. Anne of Green Gables is one of my all-time favorite books. But this last installment of the Emily trilogy had me rolling my eyes so constantly that I made myself dizzy. I think Emily Byrd Starr is a wonderful heroine, and I absolutely love the Prince Edward Island setting. There is something incredibly quaint and charming about the combination of that setting and Montgomery’s prose, which is unfailingly lovely. The element that made me groan constantly in annoyance was the romance. I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything quite so melodramatic. So much thwarted love. So many bruised and battered hearts. All because Montgomery’s normally intelligent characters don’t understand communication. TALK TO EACH OTHER, people. Jeez. I guess all’s well that ends well, but so many years of happiness were lost due to pride and miscommunication that even the ending felt soured because of it.

[Nilo0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

و بالاخره سومین کتاب از مجموعه امیلی که هر کتاب قشنگ تر از قبلی بود و عاشق امیلی و شخصیت و ماجراهاش شدم و به همه پیشنهاد میدم بخونید و از دنیای قشنگ مونتگمری لذت ببرید
در این کتاب چون امیلی به سن جوانی می رسه، بیشتر و عمیق تر از قبل با مفهوم عشق و رنج و تنهایی آشنا میشه. اما در کنارش روزهای خوش زیادی هم تجربه کرده. اتفاقاتی که نفسم رو بند می آورد اما خیلی زیبا و شیرین بود و تهش نفس راحتی کشیدم
یکی از مزیت های این کتاب نسبت به آنشرلی اینه که شاید خیلی هامون از ماجرا و پایانش خبر نداشته باشیم و این خیلی جالبه و پا به پای امیلی غصه می خوریم و شاد میشیم
واقعا کتاب به یاد ماندنی و زیبایی بود و از خوندن تک تک کتاب ها و فصل های کتاب، بی نهایت لذت بردم

[Kailey (Luminous Libro) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emily is left behind at New Moon while her friends pursue their dreams and travel the world. She throws herself into her writing and struggles to get her stories published, but gradually earns the respect of her family when she begins to make her writing a success. Through a series of mishaps, she loses her connection to some of her dearest friends and her childhood sweetheart, Teddy Kent. She searches for happiness with a man she doesn't really love. Emily has to face the truth deep within her heart before she loses Teddy Kent for good.

This has always been my least favorite book in the Emily trilogy. She spends so much of the book being lonely and melancholy, and it makes me depressed. There isn't as much humor in this book as the other ones. However, it is still an excellent book and an enjoyable read!

I love the intricacies of Emily's character as she is really learning what it means to be "grown up" and take responsibility for your life. She is a deeply complex person, and I love the internal battles she fights with herself.

The plot is a little slow in places, especially in chapters that have Emily's journal entries. But there are other exciting scenes in the plot and wild storylines that make up for the slower bits. The ending is much too rushed. It needs more of a denouement. Everything is resolved much too quickly, and it always leaves me feeling unsatisfied. Still, it is a wonderful conclusion to Emily's story!

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first time rereading this book since high school, and I had some major issues with it that I don't remember from earlier readings. Emily was driving me crazy with her pride and stubbornness - I kind of felt like she didn't really deserve to get the guy if she was so unwilling to sacrifice even the tiniest bit of pride and admit to her feelings. Same with Ilse - if she had ever given Perry the slightest indication that she even liked him a little bit as a person instead of ragging on him all the time, maybe it would have occurred to him to consider her as a romantic prospect.

I also felt like Dean didn't deserve the sympathy that Emily and L.M. Montgomery gave him - they may have forgiven him for his need to possess Emily completely, but I certainly didn't! It wasn't just the lie that caused her to burn her book that I had issues with - it was his constant belittling of Emily's writing and ambitions. That was emotional abuse right there, I don't care how stimulating his conversation was.

I still gave it three stars for nostalgia's sake. I do still think it's a pretty good read, even if I was tearing my hair out at the way these people were acting.