The last time I read one of Ms Montgomery’s books, I was still a teenager. I loved all the books with Anne as the heroine – from Anne of Green Gables to Anne House of dreams. The books were magical for me. Anne, Diana, Gilbert were like real people that you’ve got to know more about them. Despite my love for those books it sure took a while for me to get a hold of the less popular books by Ms Montgomery. I suppose that was it, because it was less known, I barely could see these at bookstores back in Malaysia years ago when the internet was not that widely used.
In fact, I got these books for free to be read on my ipad. You can find great bargains and even free classical books on Amazon Kindle once in a while. So the books in order which they are supposed to be read: Emily of New Moon, Emily climbs and Emily’s Quests.
I read all three books within 3 days. I am at the moment sleep deprived for sure but I just couldn’t help myself, it was not easy to put them down once I started reading during the night.
I decided to just do one review for all three books as to me it is like one whole story of Emily. It just won’t be complete to just read one or two books out of the series. This is one of those stories that you simply got to read one book at a time and not skip any.
So here is what I thought of the books. They were good. Obviously as to how it was difficult for me to put them down. 🙂 But not as good as the Anne of Green Gables series and I could not help but to compare. This series seems to be a bit darker with a touch of paranormal, pedophilia, emotional incest and rather not as cheerful as Anne of Green Gables series. Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride characters kept on popping up when ever Emily’s uncles and aunts were in the picture. The Murrays ( Emily’s maternal family) just infuriates me sometimes with their judgmental nature with one Aunt Ruth for example always suspecting Emily as being sly at all times and questioned everything she did as having a bad underlying motive simply because of what her mother did in the past. But I suppose that is what real life families are at times – annoying pain in the ass lot.
I don’t know why it is, but somehow I felt it was rather rushed at the end. Maybe because it was only planned for 3 books and no more, or simply she just got tired of writing it towards the end. Some characters had more attention than some other important ones. I mean, there was Teddy Kent who was supposed to be a love interest for Emily and we barely know anything much about him. With Anne of Green Gables each character’s personality was well built so much so you feel like you yourself know them all your life – like Ruby Gillis, and heck even Charlie Sloane. Now with Emily of New moon this lack some how left me with a feeling of slight dissatisfaction.
All in all they were worth the read. Believe it or not there were positive take aways from the books for me personally. So I gave the books 4 out of 5 stars. Looking forward to read more of L.M. Montgomery’s other works soon.