3 stars = Didn't hate, but didn't fall in love like with most of the previous books.
This was probably my least favorite book in the Anne series so far. Usually the positives in these books outweigh the negatives for me, but in this one they were about half and half. I’ll cover the negative first, and then follow up with the positives so that I end my review on a good note, because that’s how I prefer to end things.
Negatives:
For one thing, I found it jarring that 7 or 9 years (I was really confused which it was) had passed between the previous book and this one. Last I saw Anne she was in her mid-twenties with one baby, then BOOM she's mid-thirties with five kids and another on the way. I understand why Montgomery would have wanted to jump forward like that for the sake of being able to write about the kids and their lives, but it was also just making me feel like, "WHOA pump the breaks, let's slow down a little here!" Once I got used to the new time frame it didn't bother me as much, but it just wasn't the somewhat smooth transition to the new book I'd been used to. Plus, all of Anne and Diana's reminiscing about yesteryear at the very beginning of the book made me feel a bit nostalgic in a sad kind of way, partially because they were kind of talking like being thirty something is SO OLD and the best part of their lives was their childhood, which already passed. And I'm like, "Um, NO. The best part of your lives is, or at least can be, RIGHT NOW if you CHOOSE TO MAKE IT THAT WAY by appreciating all the things and people you’ve been blessed with and making the most of EVERY DAY and EVERY BREATH you’re given."
I mean, I understand that they miss the freedom they had as children and being able to spend time together the way they used to. I also don’t have a problem with looking back at the past and remembering where you’ve been so you can learn from it and better appreciate where you are now. But I think there’s a delicate balance between visiting the past and wishing you were still living in it, the latter of which is not, in my opinion, the attitude God wants us to have. Thankfully though, the story did move on (I was a little afraid this sad nostalgia would be a theme through the whole book) and it started to be apparent that Anne actually is content in her current life and is happy, which made be feel better. I just didn’t like feeling the sad nostalgia right at the beginning of the book.
Another thing that landed on the negative side for me was that, usually, I enjoy the colorful personalities of the secondary characters in the Anne books. They tend to be so outrageous that it makes me laugh (which I believe is the author’s intention). In this one, however, some of the outrageous personalities struck me as more annoying than funny. I literally kept saying “good grief!” to myself over an over because, good grief, who acts like that?! (Sadly, there are people in RL who act like that, but still!) Aunt Mary Maria was one of the big ones. I hated her negative, controlling, manipulative attitude, especially the fact that she, who didn’t have kids, thought she knew so much better than Anne and Gilbert how to raise the Ingleside kids, and even slapped one of the girls at one point. In my book, you do not slap a child in the face EVER. No. Nada. I cannot tolerate this, and the fact that it wasn’t even her own child only made me more angry. It also made me mad that Anne, Gilbert, and Susan couldn’t seem to stand up to her just because she was family and she acted like a victim every time they tried. I’m like, HECK NO. There are some lines you don’t cross, I don’t care how lonely you are living by yourself. Emotional manipulation and physical abuse of my children, my husband, my staff, and myself is the line. You crossed it. GET. OUT. OF. MY. HOUSE. *fume*
The behavior of some of the non-Ingleside children on the island also drove me a bit bonkers. I’m not even saying that it was not realistic—I remember my own childhood peers doing and saying similar things at right around the same ages as these characters (and it annoyed me just as much in real life as in fiction)—it just seemed like the ones that behaved badly got quite a bit of attention in this book. Like, we’re told that the Ingleside children have had some good friends, but we’re only TOLD about them, we do not SEE them. What we do see is super obnoxious kids lying to, bullying, threatening, and generally treating the Ingleside kids badly. I could have tolerated a couple examples of this because goodness knows kids are not always kind to each other, but I would have so much preferred the focus to be on the good friendships and seen the Ingleside children find their own kindred spirits like Diana was to Anne.
I also felt like there was way more skippable "flab" in this book than in any of the previous books. I have skipped stuff that just went on too long in previous books, but it was usually only once or twice per-book that I had to do it. With this one, on the other hand, especially in the latter half of the book, there were at least four or five instances where things were going too long, and some of it was inconsequential to anything, the section of story featuring the quilting circle ladies being the worst offender. Then there were some things that were consequential, but just went on and on and on until I was like, “I understood the point of this mini-story three page ago! Can we just get a conclusion already???”) So, I started doing what I usually don’t like doing in most books and skipping pages, sometimes upward of four or more pages at a time, and was able to do this without feeling like I’d missed anything of importance.
My final gripe is a place in the final chapter where I felt like the book actually disagreed with the back-cover synopsis in a disappointing way. The back cover of my copy says, “…[Anne] begins to worry that her adored Gilbert doesn’t love her anymore. […] She’s ready to make her cherished husband fall in love with her all over again!” I took this to mean that Anne was going to reach a place where she felt her marriage was getting stale (which did happen) and then was going to be the determined Anne we know and love and take action to put some excitement back into their marriage and it would be all romantic and cute and stuff (which didn’t happen). What actually happened was that Anne got stuck in one of those annoying ruts in life I know we all get stuck in at some point where it feels like you’re just doing the same thing day in and day out, and nothing will ever change, and you don’t know how to change it, and you get frustrated and bitter and grumpy and just in a really negative, unhealthy headspace. Added on to this was the fact that Gilbert truly seemed “out of it”, like he didn’t notice anything Anne did anymore, didn’t call her by the endearing nicknames, kissed her like it was just habit and didn’t mean anything, etc. I was waiting for Anne to get determined and take that action the back cover had promised, but she just…didn’t. What she did do was get more mad and frustrated, and decided that if Gilbert was tired of her, fine, she’d be all jealous and sad and wouldn’t even remind him of their anniversary when it came around if he was going to forget it, and basically spiraled into this pit of bitterness and self-pity until something happened (something she took no action to cause) that changed everything and made her realize how wrong she’d been to be thinking the way that she was. Realizing your mistake and learning from it and apologizing for your behavior: Good. Deciding to get mad and stay mad instead of…oh, I don’t know…COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR HUSBAND AND MAYBE EVEN ASKING HIM WHY HE’S BEEN SO OUT OF IT LATELY, WHICH WOULD HAVE ANSWERED ALL YOUR QUESTIONS AND SOLVED THE PROBLEM: BAD Of course, I can’t put all the blame on Anne in this case. The reason Gilbert had been so out of it for two weeks was because of intense job-related stress which he thought he told Anne about, but didn’t. I just…*facepalm* Really, Gilbert, really? I generally like you as Anne’s husband, so please don’t make me have to reach through the book, grab you by the collar, and give you a good talking to about women not being mind-readers!!! Well, thankfully it seems they both learned their lesson about communication and I hope I won’t have to be irritated by them in this manner again.
/end super ranty rant about the negatives of this book
Positives:
Now for the good stuff! Among the things I liked about this book, I really (minus the gripes I mentioned above in relation to the aunt-who-shall-not-be-named^) loved Anne and Gilbert as parents, and especially appreciated the way Anne handled her children’s problems: By letting them say what they needed to say without judgement or interruption, taking their feelings and their problems seriously even if they seemed silly and superfluous to her as an adult, and then simply explaining the truth to them in a matter-of-fact, non-condescending way. That’s good parenting, folks, and actually a really good way to treat kids in general. *thumbs up*
And, minus the issue at the end which was caused by lack of communication, I liked Anne and Gilbert as husband and wife in that they do actively strive to keep their marriage healthy and show genuine love to each other, unlike so many of their peers who married for convenience and let themselves reach a point where they resented their spouse and seemed to think that was just the natural course of life and marriage. (hint: IT’S NOT!)
I also liked pretty much all of the Ingleside kids. Yes, they made mistakes sometimes, but the majority of these mistakes were of the entertaining variety caused by the natural immaturity and naivety of childhood, not the obnoxious, annoying, variety, like with the other kids on the island who seemed to get a kick out of lying and drowning puppies and kittens. *eye twitch* In general, the Ingleside kids seemed to be genuinely sweet kids whom I look forward getting to know better in the last two books.
I’m somewhat surprised to say that this may also be the one book in this series that didn’t make me cry my eyes out at any point. I was braced for it because it seems like Montgomery has managed to pull tears out of me once in every book up till now, and I actually did spot the thing I think was supposed to be the Sad Event of this book, but… It just didn’t make me cry. I think the reason was A) I saw it coming pretty much as soon as that section of the story started and B) this “individual” wasn’t even on the page all that long and I didn’t have that much reason to get emotionally attached to them. So… Not crying for once was actually somewhat refreshing. :p
And finally, Montgomery was once again faithful in providing a satisfying ending. It wasn’t so satisfying that I wanted to hug the book like with the previous one, but it was still a pleasant way for it to end (except for that tiny touch of foreshadowing about Walter’s future, WAH!!! ._. ) and when I put the book down, I was content.
Like I said at the start, I didn’t hate this book, but there was enough that annoyed me that I never fell in love either. That does not, however, mean I didn’t enjoy any of it, so I’m giving it a neutral 3 stars and move right along to the next book.
Content Advisory:
Sexual content: Mild hints of romance here and there. Super vague hints at Anne’s pregnancy. A mention of someone kissing someone else absently as if it has become habit and no longer means anything.
Violence: One instance where we’re told of a child being slapped in the face by an adult. A couple mentions of dogs dying early deaths because they ate an unknown poisonous substance (we do not “see” the deaths, we only know that the dogs went downhill until they died.) Two suggestions of child abuse, one from a child who turns out to be a chronic liar, and one where it sounds like it might actually be true because the child’s father is known as a drunkard. (We never “see” a child being abused.) Kids threaten each other verbally and physically, but no one is ever seriously hurt.
Other negatives: Many of the kids on the island (with the exception of the Ingleside kids, who we’re told are not lied to at home and therefore don’t expect to be lied to elsewhere and don’t have a habit of lying themselves) lie to each other and the Ingleside kids pretty frequently. Some of the lies are just exaggeration, but some of them are pretty cruel, including, but not limited to, telling a young boy who is away from home that he was sent away because his mother is dying, and in fact, is probably already dead. The kids who tell this lie have no sympathy when the boy becomes visibly upset and seem to enjoy upsetting him.
Children also badmouth each other and other children’s parents.
Women shamelessly gossip during a quilting circle and only seem to regret it when they realize a child was spying on them and have to think back to see if they said anything a child shouldn’t hear.
One episodic story is in the form of a memory of something that happened at a funeral many years ago, that everyone seems to think was pretty terrible and supposedly isn’t a story for children. (Turns out the man who died was a pretty mean person when he was alive, and the sister of his widow crashes the funeral and tells everyone the truth about how badly he treated everyone, including his wife. This woman has grown so bitter she says she’s going to laugh at the man’s dead body, but then has to leave because she’s weeping too hard. Another woman at the funeral who is apparently even more bitter than her, thanks her for telling everyone the truth.
Worldviews: Anne and Gilbert seem to be Christians: They go to church, believe in God, pray, quote Scripture, and raise their children in these beliefs. Sometimes the kids get ideas in their heads about God that are not biblical, but they are later corrected in a loving way.
As in all of the Anne books, there are some side characters who claim to be “Christian” but who do not behave as such.
In one episodic story a child’s father is said to be an atheist, and that child later tells one of the Ingleside girls that God isn’t real. This upsets the girl deeply, but when she gets home, Anne lets her talk about it the same way she lets all the kids talk about things they’re upset about, and the girl decides she still believes in God.