"Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery (re-read)

My L.M. Montgomery Readathon group on Facebook has just finished reading & discussing the author's first and most famous book, "Anne of Green Gables," which we started back in early July (covering two chapters per week).  (I read the novel through on my own before we started, and reviewed it here, along with some memories of my personal history with this well-known Canadian classic.) 

I loved this book as a child, and I love love LOVED revisiting it now, especially in such an in-depth way with other Montgomery fans. As I said in my initial review, I hadn't re-read this book in decades, but even after all these years, I could practically recite the words on some of the pages without even looking at them, they were so very familiar. 

The basic plot of the book is pretty well known: 60-something brother & sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert (both unmarried and childless) decide to adopt a boy, unseen, from an orphanage in Nova Scotia, to help Matthew with the work on their Prince Edward Island farm (Green Gables) near the small town of Avonlea. But when Matthew goes to pick up the child at the train station, the boy turns out to be a precocious 11-year-old girl with bright red hair, freckles, a wild imagination and a prolific vocabulary, who is overjoyed at the prospect of finally having a real home. Reluctant to send the child back to the orphanage and an uncertain fate, the Cuthberts decide to keep her anyway, changing their lives (and Anne's -- and ours!) in ways they never could have imagined.  

It's a story filled with pathos, sharp observations and humour, as we watch Anne evolve from a scrawny, talkative, imaginative, hot-tempered orphan into an accomplished young woman graduating from teacher's college. The last three chapters (the second-last chapter in particular) never fail to make me cry. (Have Kleenex handy.)  And, on an ALI note, it occurred to me, in those final chapters that, in making lemonade out of the lemons life has unexpectedly handed her, Anne has a lot to teach those of us whose lives have not gone exactly the way we had planned or hoped. (No wonder I love this book!) 

Despite some dated elements and attitudes, this book deserves its reputation as a classic, and it's easy to see why it's still so beloved, in Canada and around the world, more than 100 years after it was first published.  My original rating (4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 on Goodreads) stands. :) 

Our next group read -- to be announced -- won't begin until the new year.  

This was Book #44 read to date in 2022 (and Book #3 finished in November), bringing me to 98% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 6 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."