Reviews

This book contains the first two novels of this series. Just some clarification: I didn't read the books ever as a kid, and I don't think I ever heard of the character before the Netflix series was released (which I watched until it was cancelled, and like it to a certain degree). A short introduction about the theme of the books: Anne Shirley is an 11 years old orphan who gets adopted by two farmer siblings living in Prince Edward Island, Canada, by the end of the 19th century. These siblings are rather old and never got married, so they are also childless. They decide to adopt a boy, so he could help them in the farm, but instead this skinny red haired girl arrives, and conquers their hearts with her quirky personality. She is very talkative and romantic, full of imagination and passion.
The novels are not my cup of tea. I enjoyed the second a bit more than the first, but it was not enough for me to like the series.

The first novel, Anne of Green Gables, has no plot, just episodes in the life of Anne, sometimes with a big temporal gap in between them. The second one, Anne of Avonlea, is similar in that aspect, but at least by the end there’s an attempt to a plot that develops in several consecutive chapters... But I didn’t find it interesting anyway. The style in these novels is often poor, monotonous, boring, too poetic and pretentious to my taste. Anne's personality is tiresome. At first she seems sweet and quirky, but soon enough she shows to be shallow and extra, to not say plain silly. She pays a lot - A LOT - of attention to her physical appearance, and the one of others, which makes her a very boring character, at least for me. I don’t buy all her poetics if she can be that shallow. I know we're not meant to take Anne's discourse so seriously, especially in the first novel, but being a book for young people it makes me cringe to see that certain ideas get validated by Anne - the hero and protagonist - so often.
In general the characters were not interesting for me, many of them don’t develop much of a personality (even if they are important ones like Gilbert or Diana), or they have a very cliché one. I guess the only character that enjoyed reading was Matthew, and sometimes Marilla.
The writing style of the first novella has a very repetitive structure. The chapters very often go like this: we get an introduction about the season or weather of that day, then Anne attempts to do something and much likely she will make a mistake or something outstanding out of it. And then it ends with Marilla or Matthew making a comment about Anne.
Other common formula for these chapters: Anne is the narrator of what happened lately in her life, so we don't get the author to narrate a situation, but instead there's a description that Anne makes of particular events. So we get these long monologues by Anne quite often, that are obviously not very detailed and again, leave no much room for side character development. Everything seems so focused on Anne that makes the book very boring.
The second novel, Anne of Avonlea, improves in this aspect, and we see things as they happened, with less (but still some) monologues by Anne. Buuut, this one novel had something that it’s quite awful: it validates whipping children as a correct punishment for behaving badly (in school.) I know this book is old, but I can't believe people love these books so much today. Whipping kids has never been a good thing. There are also very awful comments about women, that don’t look like critics from the author. For example, Mr Harrison saying “A woman would forgive a man for beating her sooner than for hinting she was too much pleased to get him.” (p. 480)
So, overall, I don’t recommend these books, even though I enjoyed some bits. But, hey, it’s the first time that I can endure 527 pages of a book that I don’t like and I’m not obligated to read ;p

oops_i_read_it_again's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

lillifeeee's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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