Tag: the classics club

Book Review | Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

Posted August 22, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

When twelve-year-old Anne Shirley came to Avonlea, she quickly won everyone’s heart. Now, she’s five years older, almost a woman, and about to embark on a new adventure: becoming the teacher in her old Avonlea school. It’s an exciting year as Anne struggles to win over all her students, welcomes two new members to her family, and feels the first stirrings of love.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club

The Reason

I started Anne of Green Gables and loved it and just had to continue with the series!

The Quotes

“Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.”

“One can’t get over the habit of being a little girl all at once.”

“The future is yet an untrodden path full of wonderful possibilities.”

“Of course, I knew there are no fairies; but that needn’t prevent my thinking there is.”

The Narrator(s)

Beth Kesler. It was a bit of an adjustment coming from Rachel McAdams in the first book to a different narrator, but I ended up really loving Beth Kesler’s voices for the characters and the narration.

My Thoughts

What I love about this book is the children; Paul, Davy, and Dora are all wonderful to read about, and I love witnessing Anne’s interactions with them. I think the best thing about having children in your life is that they help you see the world with childlike wonder, and that’s the best thing about this book too. I also really love Miss Lavender because even though she was an older woman, she was still so childlike and sweet.

Now that I’m older, I feel like there’s no reason to stop being childish and carefree just because you’re all grown up. I know there are people who disagree, but I’ve been serious and somber as an adult, and I’ve been childish and playful as an adult, and I can tell you I’m much happier when I can be childish and playful. Mind you, when I say childish and playful, I don’t mean immature and irresponsible. People need to know the difference!

I also love that Gilbert and Anne are friends in this book, although we don’t see as much of Gilbert as I want. But there’s still the next book to look forward to!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Posted August 22, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

As soon as Anne Shirley arrives at the snug white farmhouse called Green Gables, she is sure she wants to stay forever . . . but will the Cuthberts send her back to the orphanage? Anne knows she’s not what they expected—a skinny girl with fiery red hair and a temper to match. If only she can convince them to let her stay, she’ll try very hard not to keep rushing headlong into scrapes and blurting out the first thing that comes to her mind. Anne is not like anyone else, the Cuthberts agree; she is special—a girl with an enormous imagination. This orphan girl dreams of the day when she can call herself Anne of Green Gables.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club

The Reason

I was just casually browsing the Audible Plus catalog and came across this book, narrated by Rachel McAdams. I love this book and I love Rachel McAdams and I was just curious, so I listened to a sample. And just kept going!

The Quotes

“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

“The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and storytellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.”

The Narrator(s)

Rachel McAdams. I love listening to her voice, it’s so distinctive! And so expressive too! I thought she was such a wonderful voice for Anne.

My Thoughts

This was one of my favorite childhood books, but I honestly thought I had read it enough for now and wasn’t planning to come back to it for a while. I sampled the audiobook just to see how Rachel McAdams sounds as Anne, and ended up getting sucked back into the wonderful nostalgia of childhood.

I love this world with Anne; looking through her eyes, falling in love with Green Gables and with the Cuthberts, being so happy about simple things, always looking out for kindred spirits, letting the imagination run wild and free. Oh! It makes me want to live there permanently! And it makes me wonder why I don’t.

Why can’t we keep falling in love with our homes and the people around us every day? Why can’t we be happy about the simple things? Why can’t we keep ourselves open to kindred spirits? Why can’t we let our imagination run wild and free once in a while? I used to do it all the time, but I have forgotten to hold on to the magic the longer I’m an adult. Anne keeps my inner child alive and reminds me that even though I’m older now, there can still be magic in this world. I want to bring that magic back.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster

Posted August 14, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster

When Jerusha Abbott, an eighteen-year-old girl living in an orphan asylum, was told that a mysterious millionaire had agreed to pay for her education, it was like a dream come true. For the first time in her life, she had someone she could pretend was “family.” But everything was not perfect, for he chose to remain anonymous and asked that she only write him concerning her progress in school. Who was this mysterious gentleman and would Jerusha ever meet him?

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club

The Reason

This is one of my favorite childhood books but I have never listened to it on audio. And then I find out that Julia Whelan narrates it! Of course I had to listen!

The Quotes

“I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people’s places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.”

“I believe absolutely in my own free will and my own power to accomplish – and that is the belief that moves mountains. ”

“It’s much more entertaining to live books than to write them.”

“It isn’t the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit!”

The Narrator(s)

Julia Whelan. The GOAT.

My Thoughts

As I was reading, I’m aware of how times have changed and how Daddy-Long-Legs would probably not be a wholesome story for modern times. However, I love this book too much to get too woke about it, and I think sometimes we have to take into account that stories that come from a different time than ours will play into thinking that is different from ours and it’s necessary to not erase them.

Having said that, I just really love this book for so many reasons; I love that it’s so funny, I love that Judy Abbott has such a wonderful sense of humor, I love that she’s honest about herself and her flaws, I love that she discovers herself and stays true to herself, I love that she makes friends and learn new things. I love so many things about it. I love that it’s epistolary; it really ignited my love of writing letters and journals, and it also helped me to develop a irreverent voice for my own journal-writing because of how irreverent Judy is.

I should also mention that another one of the things I love about it is the cute illustrations, but since I’m listening on audio this time around, they don’t come into play. But also, since I’m listening on audio and Julia Whelan narrates it, what I lose out in illustrations, I gain in Julia Whelan’s narration. So it’s win-win either way!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Posted August 14, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

In a house full of sadness and secrets, can young, orphaned Mary find happiness?

Mary Lennox, a spoiled, ill-tempered, and unhealthy child, comes to live with her reclusive uncle in Misselthwaite Manor on England’s Yorkshire moors after the death of her parents. There she meets a hearty housekeeper and her spirited brother, a dour gardener, a cheerful robin, and her wilful, hysterical, and sickly cousin, Master Colin, whose wails she hears echoing through the house at night.

With the help of the robin, Mary finds the door to a secret garden, neglected and hidden for years. When she decides to restore the garden in secret, the story becomes a charming journey into the places of the heart, where faith restores health, flowers refresh the spirit, and the magic of the garden, coming to life anew, brings health to Colin and happiness to Mary.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #48: The word “secret” in the title )
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club

The Reason

It was available on audiobook and I needed a book with the word “secret” in the title. I thought this would do.

The Quotes

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”

“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done–then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”

“Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world,” he said wisely one day, “but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen.”

“Two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way – or always to have it.”

The Narrator(s)

Carrie Hope Fletcher. It was so lovely to listen to. I really enjoyed her narration.

My Thoughts

This was never one of my favorite childhood books. I read it as a child, I liked it, but I never loved it or thought about it much. I didn’t dislike it, to be clear, it just wasn’t on my favorites list. I decided to reread it recently because it was convenient and it fit a reading prompt I needed to finish, and I am so glad I did! I found that I love this book a lot more now as an adult than as a child.

There were many things about the book I didn’t understand as a child. Mary being neglected and left alone, the fact that not many adults in her life cared for her and she wasn’t parented well. And Colin too. I feel for them a lot more now instead of thinking they were nothing but brats in the beginning. I mean, they were, but it’s not their fault.

I love the transformation of their attitudes and personalities as the garden is also transformed. I love how this book presents the law of attraction in action. I love how the book started so bleak and sad, but ended so hopeful and happy. I love this book so much more now as an adult.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Posted June 27, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

‘Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show’

Dickens’s epic, exuberant novel is one of the greatest coming-of-age stories in literature. It chronicles David Copperfield’s extraordinary journey through life, as he encounters villains, saviours, eccentrics and grotesques, including the wicked Mr Murdstone, stout-hearted Peggotty, formidable Betsey Trotwood, impecunious Micawber and odious Uriah Heep.

Dickens’s great Bildungsroman (based, in part, on his own boyhood, and which he described as a ‘favourite child’) is a work filled with life, both comic and tragic.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #23: The other book with a similar plot)
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club

The Reason

I’ve been wanting to read more Dickens, and I guess all the raving reviews about Demon Copperhead and the similarities between these two books encouraged me to pick them both up sooner rather than later! It also helped that they fit the 52 Book Club Challenge, and I was also doing The Classics Club challenge!

The Quotes

“I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time.”

“There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.”

“It’s in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.”

“It has always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this reason, I retained my modesty in very self”

“My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.”

The Narrator(s)

Richard Armitage. Oh, I have such mixed feelings! Intellectually, I feel like the narrator did such an amazing job and is incredibly talented. Emotionally, I hate his voices for some of the characters because they are just so vile and annoying and disgusting! Which are entirely suitable to those characters and brought them to life for me, both a good and bad thing because oh, I hated them!

My Thoughts

It’s weird because my thoughts about this book I think will be forever linked to my thoughts about Demon Copperhead. This book has existed for way longer than Demon Copperhead and has been on my radar before Demon Copperhead was ever written, but since I heard so much hype about Demon Copperhead and ended up reading it first, I almost feel like it’s a duology, each taking place centuries apart.

I had no idea what either book was about, and I had no idea to what extent Demon Copperhead was similar to David Copperfield, so everything was still a surprise to me as I read it. I also thought both books were brilliant, but to be quite honest, my respect and admiration for Barbara Kingsolver has gone up after reading David Copperfield and seeing how she incorporated all the elements of the story into Demon Copperhead. They are both incredible books, and I’m very likely to reread both sometime down the line soon.

My Feels

This is a gorgeous book, and in some ways, I regret not reading it before Demon Copperhead because I would’ve liked to have seen it from a fresh perspective, especially since it came first. But either way, I’m glad I read both. I feel like this book has its ups and downs, but it feels more hopeful, and I love that.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Posted May 8, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.

Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Nonfiction Reader Challenge
2024 Diversity Reading Challenge
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Challenge
The Classics Club

The Reason

This has been on my TBR forever and it was available on audio, so I decided to finally read it.

The Quotes

“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”

“Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn’t know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn’t be taught to me at George Washington High School. ”

“Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.”

The Narrator(s)

Read by the author herself. I always love it when the author narrates, because you can hear the inflections and emphasis in the places they meant them. She also sings the verses, and they were beautiful to hear.

My Thoughts

This is one of those books that come highly recommended and that you hear referenced all the time. I’ve been meaning to read it for a long time because of hearing so much about it, but I had no idea what I was in for. I’d expected it to be deep and meaningful just from all the references about it, and having an idea of what life must have been like for a black woman in those days, but I have a long way to go for learning and understanding it.

My Feels

I don’t know how Maya Angelou managed to write about her painful and defining moments in such a beautiful and lyrical way. I have no words to describe the feelings, but there were parts I had to stop and just take time to process. This is such a powerful book.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Posted April 26, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #49: Set in a city starting with the letter “M”)
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Challenge
The Classics Club
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #30: In the public domain)

The Reason

I’ve read this book a dozen times and loved it every time. This time it’s for a readalong with my online book club and I must say, I love the book even more now from this wonderful experience!

The Quotes

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words – Wait and Hope”

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you”

“I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.”

“Passion can blind even those who are ordinarily the most clear-headed.”

The Narrator(s)

John Lee. I was listening to the Blackstone Publishing audiobook. I enjoyed the narration, and it was easy to follow the flow of the story.

My Thoughts

I’ve loved this book a long time, but reading it with my online book club is a whole other experience. I loved reading along and seeing new details I didn’t notice before, and having things pointed out to me by others as well. I loved sharing my thoughts and listening to others’ thoughts and opinions. Even the opposing ones. Especially the opposing ones. We had some heated discussions and I enjoyed them all. I also have a new appreciation for certain scenes I never paid much attention to before.

My thoughts about the book itself – I’ll write an essay one day, but for now, I’ll keep it simple. I love the story and the storytelling. I love that this story doesn’t get old for me no matter how many times I’ve read it (although the first time was the most intense!). I love the characters, the journey, the way you see each and every single one of them change over time. I love the karma, the intricacies, the way things came a full circle. And the fact that it was originally serialized, and that it’s so massive, how incredible this story is and how much skill Dumas had in writing it. I love it and I love it and I love it a thousand times!

My Feels

Have I said I loved it yet?

Seriously though, all the feels! The heartache, the anguish, the pain, the cunning, the fear, the satisfaction, the everything! There was also plenty of humor to go around, if you read between the lines. I love it!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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