Anne of the Island A Canadian Coming-of-Age Classic of College Life, Friendship, First Love, and Self-Discovery

Lucy Maud Montgomery's "Anne of the Island" is a direct continuation of "Anne of Avonlea". This book spans four years and follows Anne's time at college. There, she not only gets a higher education, but meets lots of new and interesting people as well. Furthermore, wedding season seems to have started, since old schoolmates are getting married left and right. Anne, too, seems to be pretty popular in that regard, there is definitely no lack of offers. But who should she choose? Going into this, I knew that I was going to love this book just because I sensed that my inner romantic was finally going to get something to be excited about. And I was completely right. I could also strongly identify with Anne's excitement and homesickness due to her being away from home. What I didn't expect, though, was how hard a certain death hit me, even though they were by no means the first character to meet their end. All in all, "Anne of the Island" was a pretty satisfying read for me and there's just one little thing that I missed: I would have loved to follow Anne on a few social outings, like maybe a dance. For those who are interested, "Anne of Windy Poplars" is the next book in this series and I cannot wait to get my hands on it.