Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
Brilliantly Old-Fashioned, 13 Feb 2002
By A Customer
It does not seem to be four years ago, when I was ten, that I ripped open the wrapping paper on a birthday present from my aunt to discover this book. I started reading it, but had to read the first page three times before I understood it - I was ten years old and not used to the style of language that it was written in. But as I got further in I realised that this book was something special. I took my time and after seven enjoyable weeks, I had turned the back cover. This had kick-started my love affair with books. Eleven-year-old Anne Shirley is an orphan, mistakenly adopted by Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert who are expecting a boy to help on their farm in the small, quaint village of Avonlea in Canada. The book takes us through her first few years of existence in Avonlea, and all the scrapes she gets into, the acquaintances that she makes, and the brilliant relationships between her and both "bosom-friend" Diana and the brilliant character, Gilbert Blythe. You really have to read the five other books in this series, I managed all six in under a year - that was when I was ten so I challenge anybody to defeat me! But really, I thought it was a cliche not to be able to put a book down until I started this series. I came out breathless and amazed at the reality of such a book. I did not know such literary excellence existed, and if you think that being only ten I was bound to be impressed, I have read Anne of Green Gables four times since I first read it! At the end of the series I had to go back to the first book and read that again to make the difference between little Anne Shirley and adult Anne Shirley become more prominent. I urge you to read not only this book, but all six books in the Anne series, they are pure genius.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
A book of dreams and delights., 14 Jun 2007
I can only begin to tell you how wonderful this book is, the rest you will have to discover for yourself. I grew up reading it, loving the fact that year after year I could watch Anne growing up, just like I was. I always wanted to be just like her and, to tell the truth, I still do! She is the sweetest, loveliest character ever to grace the pages of any book. She is bubbly, imaginative and irrepressible, and always positive no matter what the situation may be. This book shows her through the highs and lows of her childhood after coming to live with the Cuthberts.
I picked the book up the other day after many years of not reading it, semi-expecting that my memory of it would be better than the book actually is. By the end of the first page I was enthralled once more by this beautiful, sparkling world of fun, imagination, minor catastrophes ("always look before you leap, especially into spare room beds") and the sweet innocence of times gone by. The writing is so flowing and touching that no matter how many times I read it and think I'm immune, it still manages to make me laugh out loud, both at the whole story, and at the lovely little hidden touches of humour that I missed while reading it as a child, and also cry buckets when the situation calls for it.
This is a book that everyone should read and have as part of their childhood, or indeed adulthood. It's certainly one that I'll never stop reading.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Delightful, sweet, funny and dreamy.... Anne of Green Gables, 2 Aug 2007
I first read Anne of Green Gables when I was 8... I loved it then and still love it now (some years later). It's an all time classic, heartwarming story, with everlasting appeal for age 8s to adults. First published in 1908, it's every bit as readable now as I'm sure it was 100 years ago.
Naughty, dreamy, emotional Anne is a wonderful role model - with her fiery temperament and endless chatter, she can sometimes be a nuisance, but her adoptive parents, Marilla and Matthew, wouldn't have her any other way. She's bright, hard-working, caring and sociable and they soon find it hard to remember ever being without her.
Marilla and Matthew originally applied for a "boy" from the orphanage to help with work on their farm in idyllic Avonlea (Canada), but when Anne turns up lost and lonely, and immediately falls in love with Green Gables, they find they haven't the heart to send her away. Follow Anne's story from her arrival, age 11, to when she's 17 and leaving college, and then be sure to follow on with the rest of the "Anne" books - they're all delightful, and I can't recommend them enough!
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