Welcome to the final Rosende Reads recap for Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomey! Rosende Reads is an online book club hosted by actor Alberto Rosende, where we read an assigned book and have weekly discussions on Instagram.
This week, we discussed Chapters 25-38 as well as our thoughts on the book as a whole (you can read a recap of our last discussion here, where we talked about Chapters 1-24).
Like last week, Alberto began the live chat with a song from the Anne of Green Gables musical, “Overture/Great Workers/For the Cause/Where Is Matthew Going?” We were again joined by actress Tessa Mossey.
Scenes from this week’s live chat with Tessa and Alberto.
We started off with everyone sharing their overall impressions of the book. We talked a lot about Anne growing up and how the style of the book changes with her to reflect her maturity. Like Anne, when growing up, we also tend to stop sharing everything and anything that comes across our minds, and learn to just listen instead. Alberto thought that it was like literally reading a childhood, and then getting thrown right into adulthood; he thought that it was a very powerful message about how Anne didn’t let life get in the way of her ambitions.
Another topic that we touched on was Anne coming up against gender roles. For example, how Mrs. Lynde was against women getting educated because, in her opinion, there was no point. Alberto then pointed out how Anne never took her seriously when she said those things. Tessa also thought that this book was really progressive for the time it was written (1908) by having girls going to school and a female teacher, Miss Stacy; this was something that a lot of people from Green Gables thought was wrong, especially Mrs. Lynde, because “women are not supposed to do that.”
We then talked about Gilbert Blythe. Alberto seemed really frustrated by the Shirbert (Anne + Gilbert) slow burn and even joked that he actually might read the whole Anne of Green Gables series just to see if they actually become a thing. “It’s very romantic that they had a rivalry their whole life and then when they start becoming adults they fall for each other,” Alberto said.
Anne and Gilbert’s rivalry brought up a very interesting discussion about how having people around you who are “smarter” than you shouldn’t be looked at as a bad thing or as a threat, but should actually be inspiring. Alberto shared one of his favorite quotes on the topic which is: “If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.”
Then as always, we shared our favorite quotes from the book. Here are some of the quotes the Rosende Reads’ members liked the most:
@paula_littlemonster: “Mr. Allan says everybody should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only he says we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose.”
@jordana.g221: “Marilla looked at her with tenderness that would never have been suffered to reveal itself in any clearer light than that soft mingling of fireshine and shadow.”
@ma_podo: “Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it…yet.”
@camille.prdm: “Well, I don’t want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life.”
@seszterzs: “Oh, it’s delightful to have ambitions. I’m so glad I have such a lot.”
Tune in next Sunday, October 20th, for our first live chat about The Great Gatsby. Make sure to follow Alberto’s book club account on Instagram for the latest updates @RosendeReads. See you next time. And remember, stay curious.
Got some time? Check out videos of each Rosende Reads live chat here (run by @BaneAndLewis).
A fan-run Twitter account (run by yours truly) dedicated to Rosende Reads updates.
The official Rosende Reads Instagram account (where you can join in on the live chats!).
You can find the full and updated Rosende Reads booklist with all the books we read from September 2017 to the ones we will read in the next months on Twitter here.
