Anne of Arkham Asylum

Inspired partially by Julia’s post about getting all the Anne of Green Gables books on the Kindle, and partly by a chat with a coworker about Prince Edward Island (Australian coworker: They’ve assigned me to teach a class on Canadian life… you’re not Canadian by any chance, are you?), I got Anne of Avonlea out of the library. I remembered really enjoying the whole series as a young girl, when Gilbert Blythe filled the role Mr. Darcy would someday occupy.

The gossipy Avonlea villagers were just as charming this time around, and Gilbert was still patiently waiting for Anne, and I fully appreciated just how hilarious Anne’s plans as an idealistic schoolteacher were. But I discovered that as an adult reader, young Davey is not so much adorably mischievous but actually a terrifying sociopath. How did I forget that he locks his sister in the neighbor’s shed and leaves her there, kills animals for fun, and torments other children in order to hear their screams?

Casts a bit of suspicion on the way everyone (mother, father, uncle… all the relatives closer than their third-cousin-by-marriage, Marilla) around 6-year-old Davey and Dora has died.

Other Adult Women Who Are Totally In Love With Gilbert Blythe:

• A Past Mourning
• Childhood Crushes
• DVDs are basically books now, right?
• In which my childhood is not ruined