Litsy

Emily Climbs | Montgomery Lucy Maud

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I enjoyed this second book in the Emily series, in which Emily has a number of difficult decisions to make while various member of her friends and family try to exert their influence. I'm noticing the many ways in which Emily is different from LMM's more famous character, Anne Shirley!

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMReread @BarbaraJean

35 likes1 stack add

kwmg40

In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Resilience | Helen Knott

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A very hard-hitting and honest memoir, about the author's struggles with addiction and sexual abuse. Her resilience, leading to her recovery and ability to share her stories through her writing, is truly admirable.

#OhCanada @Jess861

32 likes

BarbaraJean

Emily Climbs | L M Montgomery

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMReread

How do you see Emily‘s writing ambitions manifest & grow throughout Emily Climbs?

Where do you see similarities between Emily & LMM?

What do you think of the choice Emily makes at the end? Do you agree with her decision or were you disappointed? What does the decision say about her sense of self? About her writing ambitions?

Are there any other scenes, themes, quotes, or characters you‘d like to discuss?

JenlovesJT47, lauraisntwilder, kwmg40, GingerAntics, TheAromaofBooks

kwmg40 Though this book was published 100 years ago, Emily's decision seems uncannily appropriate for the current times. Without getting into politics, I'll just say that there is a wave of patriotism in Canada right now at a level I've not seen before and many young people are reconsidering their decisions to leave the country for work or study. LMM herself achieved great success staying in Canada and writing about regular small-town people! 2d

TheAromaofBooks I have such mixed feelings about the ending! On a personal level, I completely agree with Emily, that she doesn't have to leave her home to be a success, and that someone from a small town can still write about life just as well as someone out there experiencing the rest of the world or what have you. But as far as whether it is true to the character LMM has created - I'm not as confident. Emily turning down this offer just doesn't seem to 100% ⬇ 2d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) match the ambitious, Alpine-path-driven Emily we've gotten to know over these two books. I feel like she would have said yes for a season - not forever, but for a year or something, just to gain the experience and hone her craft. 2d

17 likes3 comments

BarbaraJean

Emily Climbs | L M Montgomery

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMReread
Emily‘s relationships with her family naturally change here, and the New Moon family members fade a bit into the background. Still, her family continues to (or tries to!) influence her choices.

Where do you see that family influence most strongly in this book?

How are Emily‘s choices shaped by her family—and where do you see her pushing back on that influence as she matures?

JenlovesJT47, lauraisntwilder, kwmg40, GingerAntics, TheAromaofBooks

kwmg40 Emily has a very strong sense of obligation to her family, and of course, some of those members don't hesitate in reminding her of her debt to them. I'd like to think that the most influential family member is cousin Jimmy, the one that most others consider “simple“ but whose wisdom Emily recognizes and whose quiet support she appreciates. 2d

14 likes1 comment

BarbaraJean

Emily Climbs | L M Montgomery

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMReread My least-favorite characters here are Dean and Aunt Ruth—for very different reasons.

What do you make of Emily‘s relationship with Dean here? Do you see any redeeming qualities in Dean‘s friendship and influence in Emily‘s life—or is it all just creepy groomer vibes for you?

What (if any) redeeming qualities do you see in Aunt Ruth? For you, does this mitigate the way she treats Emily for most of the novel?

JenlovesJT47, lauraisntwilder, kwmg40, GingerAntics, TheAromaofBooks

kwmg40 Had I read this book a couple of decades ago, I probably would have felt differently about Dean, seeing how he challenged Emily intellectually. Now, with changing attitudes in society, and also after having raised two daughters, I'm afraid he just seems creepy to me.

It's the same with respect to Aunt Ruth. All the bullying early on made it difficult for me to see her as any kind of ally to Emily, even with her later kinder actions. 2d

TheAromaofBooks I've really tried to be more attentive to Dean in this read-through, because it doesn't seem like LMM would have written him purposefully as a creepy groomer, so surely she was trying to make him a likable character/genuine romantic possibility? But it's so hard to get past the way that he is starting to manipulate Emily by being dismissive of her writing and using her trust in his opinions to undermine her ambitions for his own benefit. I think ⬇ 2d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) that originally he does have good influences on Emily in the sense of broadening her mind and helping her to see the world beyond PEI, but like @kwmg40 said, at some point the creepiness outweighs any positives. His possessive attitude towards her since she was literally a small child is just so ick. 2d

TheAromaofBooks Aunt Ruth is completely obnoxious, but much like Aunt Elizabeth, so much of it stems from her having literally no idea of how to deal with a young person. I think she's very narrow-minded, but I honestly don't think she's purposefully mean-spirited, so I have a little more forgiveness for her than some of the other characters. Her pride in the family name is what motivates her both when she is coming down on Emily and when she is defending her. ⬇ 2d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) So I feel like in the end, I still don't like her because she doesn't actually love or even like Emily, but I never felt like her motivations in the rules and even accusations of “slyness“ stemmed from a personal dislike of Emily as much as they did from her worry that Emily was going to bring some kind of disgrace on the family name. Secondary thought - we get a hint of Aunt Ruth's teenage scandal - does that make her super sensitive?? 2d

14 likes5 comments

BarbaraJean

Emily Climbs | L M Montgomery

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMRereads - Discussion Qs for Emily Climbs coming in very late in the day!

How do Emily‘s friendships with Ilse, Teddy, and Perry change during their years in Shrewsbury? Thinking about LMM‘s other work, do you see parallels or contrasts between Emily & Anne in their changing friendships from childhood?

What do you see as the significance of Emily‘s “second sight”? Do you see connections with her imagination? ⤵️

JenlovesJT47, lauraisntwilder, kwmg40, GingerAntics, TheAromaofBooks

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d) …With her writing? With her almost spiritual sense of beauty? 3d

kwmg40 Anne seems to be more loyal and tries to always see the best in her friends. Emily's relationships are more complicated, but consequently, they seem much more realistic to me. 2d

kwmg40 I'm not sure about the significance of the second sight, but I've enjoyed several of LMM's short stories that involve the supernatural, and I love this aspect which brings a little bit of a gothic touch to the story. 2d

TheAromaofBooks Emily and Ilse are such very different characters from Anne and Diana. Ilse drives me a little crazy - WHY does she tell people about things she and Emily have done and then get surprised when everyone gossips about it?? She's definitely a wilder character than Anne or Diana, so that changes the dynamic between her and Emily a lot. 2d

TheAromaofBooks I think Emily's second sight is such an interesting thing to add to the story, because it doesn't get used much. But from LMM's journals, I definitely think this is something she believed was real/something that could really happen. I like the way that she doesn't have it as something that Emily wants/likes/encourages. That makes it seem more realistic to me. 2d

12 likes5 comments

TheAromaofBooks

Across the Miles | Lucy Maud Montgomery

My #FallingForFallSwap package is finally on its way east!! And I received my package several days ago and just have never gotten around to posting about it, so I apologize!!

Thank you so much for hosting @Avanders @Chrissyreadit !!!

Avanders 🍂🍁🧡 5d

47 likes1 comment

lauraisntwilder

In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Resilience | Helen Knott

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I'm a little late for the #OhCanada discussion, but I didn't want to miss out on this book. It's hard to review a memoir, especially one with this much trauma, but I think Knott faced her trauma head on and framed her story well. I'm interested to see what her newer book is like.

26 likes1 stack add

Gleefulreader

Death in a Darkening Mist | Iona Whishaw

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This is my second Lane Winslow mystery and I am delighting in this series. I do so enjoy a period mystery but where the women get to be strong, capable, independent characters. The incorporation of WW2 and post-WW2 geopolitics raises the bar on these mysteries. Good fun, and love the interior BC setting

kspenmoll This series is wonderful! I loved it-keep in reading ! I have a few left to go…my library had most of this series. (edited) 7d

LiteraryHoarderPenny I love these characters!! Im behind in my reading of them though! 7d

15 likes2 comments

Robotswithpersonality

Nonsense Novels | Stephen Leacock

so-so

Not quite the thoughtless diversion I first took it for, which actually makes sense, because the sharply satirical Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is the whole reason I picked up another work by Stephen Leacock.
I'll admit some of these entries - it's a collection of ten short stories - read a little goofier than others, but once you realize it's as much a commentary on different types of classic stories as it is a collection of individual 1/?

Robotswithpersonality 2/? silly narratives, it's a bit more intriguing to pick out how Leacock is sending up the various genres: detective story, ghost story, chivalric romance, dramatic but not tragic gothic romance or is it?, country bumpkin corrupted in the big city, a series of diary entries pining over a forbidding love, a Scottish romance leaning a bit more tragic, a sailor tale, a Christmas tale - maybe poking a bit at Dickens?, and early sci-fi/time travel/ 1w

Robotswithpersonality 3/? social commentary.
These are genre send-ups, so the form is fooled with to the extent that most stories are actually a dark comedy of errors, many people are obviously made fools of by conmen or shown to be fools by their own actions, naming schemes are often ridiculous (which I fear wanders past stereotypical into xenophobic/racist when the tales have a clear cultural origin 😬), 1w

Robotswithpersonality 4/? and women come off looking slightly worse than men overall. The sci-fi story in particular, as sci-fi often does, comments clearly on the values of the time it was written in, and so you get a side order of hurray capitalism/puritanical work ethic, with a sprinkle of women are silly, whether because of how they choose to enjoy fashion or because they campaign for votes and equal rights and that means they want to be 'like men'. 😮‍💨 1w

Robotswithpersonality 5/5 For the record, the casual mention of suicide and mistreatment of children seems to be inserted more carelessly into the text than it would be these days, so be warned.
I don't actually think this book offers enough to the modern reader that you need to seek it out, but it hasn't completely put me off checking out Leacock's other works either.

⚠️mention of suicide, cannibalism, child abandonment, infanticide, misogyny (edited) 1w

11 likes4 comments

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