Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L. M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic

I loved this book! I am big fan of Anne of Green Gables and loved the way the book flowed and all the great detail on Maud's life and how the story of Anne came to life. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Anne of Green Gables and L.M. Montgomery's life. Such a wonderful read!

This is not meant to be a full biography of LM Montgomery, but an intertwined story of how events in her life meshed with the gradual birth of her most beloved creation, Anne of Green Gables. As such it touches on social and fashion trends of the era, the acceptability of passionate female friendships, convoluted courtships, and life on Prince Edward Island. Many biographies start out in promising fashion, then get bogged down in too much detail. Not this narrative. If anything, it gets more and more compelling as it goes on; I was sorry to see it end. The author also broke the narrative up with subheads and lots of period images. Her writing style is really charming; she drops the more common too-dispassionate biographer's voice in favor of a warm and enthusiastic tone, but one that never loses its authority. Really well done, this book is a treasure for LM Mongomery fans, revealing fresh content in a fascinating way.

Not so long ago, I read the first two volumes of L.M Montgomery's published journals. They were very interesting but one thing that really startled me was how dark they were and not only that but how...well, puzzling! There was such a wide disconnect between the books and their author. I shouldn't have been but I was surprised to realize what a player Maud was and how perfectly bizarre and maddeningly evasive she would behave at times. Anyway, I was surprised and I spent quite a while thinking over it. It's interesting how her plots never deal with illogical or emotionally-insane people such as she was and as we all are in whatever degree. Hmmm. I picked up a copy of this book and hello! flashlight! This was it. I never thought a book would be written on the psychological puzzle that was Maud Montgomery and when I got this book, I just ate right through it. I'm re-reading it now, to be exact. It's well written and while much of it is theoretical, it's really enjoyable to see someone picking at Maud's mind. She threw up lots of screens and lots of deceptions, even in her own journals, but you can't hide everything, can you? I want to thank the author for taking the time and the imagination and for trying to crack the code on who Maud was. For she truly was and is a riddle. And if anyone is interested in getting into the whys and wherefores of Maud, this book is for you.

I read the Anne of GG books as a girl and watched the PBS movies countless times, but I'm not an Anne fanatic. For example, I've never visited PEI. :) I also don't really like to read biographies. I saw the book at my library and picked it up out of curiosity. So I'm not the typical reviewer of this book... But I can't put it down! It reads like a mystery about how Maud was inspired to write Anne. It also has reflective commentary on the themes in the Anne books, which is interesting to think about in terms of what Anne meant to me while I was her age. And the reliance on Maud's diaries for piecing together history is intriguing to me, as someone who has sporadically kept diaries. Overall, I am thoroughly enjoying the book -- it is my guilty pleasure every day.