Reviews - A Girl of the Limberlost

237 reviews for:

A Girl of the Limberlost

Gene Stratton-Porter

3.98 AVERAGE

annaleblanc316's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I first read Girl of the Limberlost in my tweens (11-12). I'm actually not sure how I first discovered it - it could have been a recommendation that my mother found in a book like Honey for a Child's Heart, or it could have been found while browsing the local library - but nevertheless, I have loved it since that first reading. Completing it today after several years and life experiences later, I find that the story still entraces but it hits with a bit more poignancy as an adult than it did in my girlhood. There are passages that are a bit more cringe-inducing now, but overall I'm so glad to see that the story holds up to my pleasant girlhood memories of the Limberlost.

Rating 4/5 stars "really liked it"
12 hrs and 7 mins / ~220 pages
Audiobook / Kindle

em_em_emily's review

4.5

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

laura86's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

janiemcpants's review against another edition

2.0

This book suffers from some values dissonance.

It’s odd to read this with a modern perspective, as a large part of the book is about the beauty of nature, but also about how if you want to be successful, you need to chop down all the trees and start drilling for oil. Elnora may be broke now, but it’ll be okay, because as soon as she inherits her portion of the forest, she’ll put down a few oil wells and take it for all it’s worth. These moths are so beautiful--quick, get the cyanide!

Elnora was probably a good heroine for 1909: smart, self-sufficient, determined to get her education and do it all on her own. Unfortunately, a hundred years later, she’s somewhat boring: beautiful, virtuous, perfect at everything she does, the patience of a saint, and all the other characters (except her mother) constantly go on about how wonderful she is. In the later part of the story, during the battle for sentient block of wood Philip Ammon, I sympathized much more with Edith, who is dismissed as temperamental and shallow, but who I couldn’t help but feel sorry for when her friends deserted her in favor of Elnora, who they’d never even met. She does some self-reflection and comes out a better person, but is thoroughly patronized by everyone around her during the process.

And speaking of Elnora’s mother, Mrs. Comstock did the quickest 180 I’ve ever seen. She neglects and abuses her daughter for most of her life, then finds out one fact and immediately turns into the perfect mother. (And expresses that partly by getting a makeover, because looking pretty and having nice dresses is a surprisingly prevalent theme in this book.) However, since she’s one of the few people to get any actual character development, I can forgive it, because at least it was interesting.

This story also features a couple of things that tend to crop up in books from this era: horrible children who we’re expected to find cute, and animal abuse that we’re expected to find funny. I ended up skipping over almost everything with Billy in it because I just couldn’t stand it.

On the plus side, I learned a lot about moths.