Ouch–hearing expectations that we don’t line up with can be tough. I keep getting the message lately though to ask for that…hard to do. It doesn’t necessarily mean we need to change accordingly, but it usually means something needs to be tweaked somewhere. I admire you for listening and thinking about what was told to you–and to be who God made you to be! I think Valancy would agree that’s the right thing to do. 🙂

Also, super glad you read along this month and read a Montgomery that you had never read before! Loved reading your thoughts and all of the comments received here. 🙂 Very fun.

I can see you enjoying it too, Lisa. It’s not up to par with the likes of Pride and Prejudice, but it’s a sweet little story.

I read Anne with my daughters so it’s been awhile for me too. Maybe next year I’ll reread it as well.

I hadn’t heard of this book until I saw it on some lists this year. But I’m so glad I found it. Better late than never.

Aw, that’s so sweet that your mother read the entire Anne series. My mother used to love to read but I don’t know if she ever read this series or not.

I laughed when I you said the book cover for The Blue Castle looked like a Harlequin Romance. That turned me off too! ha. When I was trying to find a picture to put with this post, I wasn’t happy with what was available because it’s misleading. That’s probably shallow and judgmental of me too.

I’m encouraged to hear that Daniel liked Anne! You’ve got a great man. Jeff might have read it to our daughters when they were younger, but I don’t think I could convince him to read it on his own now. However, he is faithfully watching Downton Abbey with me this season, so I give him credit for that. 🙂

I assumed my husband wouldn’t be interested in investing the time to read Anne of Green Gables, so I told him he should watch the movie with me sometime (so he would understand a few of the bits of Anne I find myself quoting frequently in melodramatic moments: “My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes”, etc.) He asked me why he shouldn’t just read the book–and promptly started in on it. He was barely into it when he was asking me if the whole book was as witty as the first bit was. Success!

I identified with Valancy, but in a rather different way than you (since I’m not prone to think what others will think when I start doing something).