Jane of Lantern Hill: 07/06/06

Over the Independence Day holiday I read Jane of Lantern Hill, one of the lesser known novels by L.M. Montgomery. Like many young girls, I "discovered" Montgomery's books in my early teens. I read Emily of New Moon in Jr. High and later fate introduced me to Anne of Green Gables.

Emily was a gift and I devoured the book in hours. Emily's diary writing inspired me to keep my own journals, though with the advent of the internet, I've switched to bloging.

Anne of Green Gables was my first BookCrossing experience, way before BookCrossing even existed. I was walking to my grandmother's house after high school (I was a sophomore). About at the halfway point, I spotted a paperback lying in the middle of the street. From the looks of things it had been run over a few times by passing cars but the spine was remarkably still intact and the book had all of its pages. The book was Anne of Green Gables. I picked it up and started to read it as I trudged up the remainder of the hill. I still have that battered copy.

Last year via the Book Relay site I received a copy of an L.M. Montgomery book that was new to me, Jane of Lantern Hill. I almost immediately promissed the book via the Relay site to another BookCrosser and then promptly forgot. The book has been sitting next to my bed in plain site for a year, nagging me. I finally took the time to look the book up in BookCrossing and realized my error so I sat down and read the book.

Here's my BookCrossing review:

Jane Victoria, or just Victoria to her stern and spiteful grandmother, goes from being a cloistered and pampered wealthy Toronto girl to a happy-go-lucky and overly domestic free spirit on (of course) Prince Edward Island. While living with her father she grows a well needed backbone but also suddenly feels the need to learn how to cook, clean and sew among other things. Truely keeping house is the source or all happiness in women! Blah. Jane lacks the spunk and spirit of my two favorite PEI characters: Anne and Emily.

It started out interesting enough with a divorce and life in Toronto but the story drags once Jane gets to Prince Edward Island. Jane of Lantern Hill failed to capture my imagination in the way that Emily and Anne managed to (and still do).

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