Emily Climbs (Emily, #2) by L.M. Montgomery


Emily Climbs (Emily, #2)
Title : Emily Climbs (Emily, #2)
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0553262149
ISBN-10 : 9780553262148
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 325
Publication : First published July 1, 1925

Emily Starr was born with the desire to write. As an orphan living on New Moon Farm, writing helped her face the difficult, lonely times. But now all her friends are going away to high school in nearby Shrewsbury, and her old-fashioned, tyrannical aunt Elizabeth will only let her go if she promises to stop writing! All the same, this is the first step in Emily's climb to success. Once in town, Emily's activities set the Shrewsbury gossips buzzing. But Emily and her friends are confident—Ilse's a born actress, Teddy's set to be a great artist, and roguish Perry has the makings of a brilliant lawyer. When Emily has her poems published and writes for the town newspaper, success seems to be on its way—and with it the first whispers of romance. Then Emily is offered a fabulous opportunity, and she must decide if she wants to change her life forever.


Emily Climbs (Emily, #2) Reviews


  • Ahmad Sharabiani

    Emily Climbs (Emily of New Moon #2), L.M. Montgomery

    Emily Climbs is the second in Emily of New Moon series of novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery. It was first published in 1925.

    "People were never right in saying I was Anne. But in some respects, they will be right if they write me down as Emily."

    Emily Byrd Starr longs to attend Queen's Academy to earn her teaching license, but her tradition-bound relatives at New Moon refuse. She is instead offered the chance to go to Shrewsbury High School with her friends, on two conditions.

    The first is that she board with her disliked Aunt Ruth, but it is the second that causes Emily difficulties. Emily must not write a word during her high-school education. At first, Emily refuses the offer, unable to contemplate a life without any writing. Cousin Jimmy changes the condition slightly, saying that she cannot write a word of "fiction". Emily does not think this much of an improvement but it turns out to be an excellent exercise for her budding writing career.

    Although Emily clashes with Aunt Ruth and Evelyn Blake, the school's would-be writer, she starts to develop her powers of storytelling. Through a series of adventures, Emily is furnished with materials to write stories and poems, and even sees success with the short story "The Woman Who Spanked the King."

    In the meantime, Emily also begins to see romantic possibilities for her life. She and Teddy Kent draw closer, but due to misunderstandings and interference from Teddy's mother, the romance stalls. Emily also refuses a proposal from Perry Miller, and continues her long-lasting friendship with Dean Priest. At the end of the novel, Emily, now a budding young writer, chooses to remain at her beloved New Moon rather than leaving for New York with famous writer Janet Royal.

    تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز چهاردهم ماه ژانویه سال2016میلادی

    عنوان: امیلی و صعود - کتاب دوم از سه گانه امیلی؛ نویسنده: لوسی مود مونتگمری؛ مترجم: سارا قدیانی؛ تهران، قدیانی، سال1394، در503ص؛ شابک9786002514028؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان کانادا - سده20م

    امیلی، دوست دارد به دبیرستان برود؛ اما خاله «الیزابت»، به شرطی به او اجازه رفتن میدهد، که قول بدهد، نوشتن را کنار بگذارد؛ این نخستین گام «امیلی»، برای مسیر اوج و رسیدن به قله است؛ او باید تصمیم بگیرد، که آیا میخواهد مسیر زندگی اش را، برای همیشه تغییر دهد یا نه؛ ...؛

    تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 12/01/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ 29/11/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

  • Duane

    Emily Climbs is the 2nd book in Lucy Maud Montgomerys Emily series, and it is near perfection in classic young adult literature. I loved the first book but this one is even better. Emily of New Moon was introducing characters, setting story lines, etc., but in this book Emily shines like a full moon over Prince Edward Island. Emily is destined to be a writer, she knows it in her heart, although her aunts, the New Moon Murray's, think she is foolish. Nevertheless, they agree to send her to high school where she writes for the local newspaper and begins to get her poems published in magazines. Emily is climbing that hill of success and her friends, and even her aunts start to believe she just may make it. Her school age friends, Ilse, Perry, and her hearts love, Teddy, combine to produce many episodes that will make the reader laugh out loud and keep Emily in hot water with her very conservative aunts. Emily is not as famous as another Montgomery character, Anne Shirley, of
    Anne of Green Gables fame, but she is every bit as lovable. A resounding 5 stars for this jewel.

  • Molly

    An agent pal of mine has a theory that you're either a "A Little Princess" kind of person, or a "A Secret Garden" kind of person. I'd argue that the same "2 kinds of people" rule could be created for Anne versus Emily. Me? I'm totally a "A Little Princess" girl, and while I do dearly love Anne, I'm so much more of an Emily. Which is interesting. B/c I think Little Princess-Anne and Secret Garden-Emily would more naturally correlate. Clearly, I'm an enigma. Even more clearly, I'm also thinking about this WAY too much....

  • Sarah

    My only complaints about this book are in the story itself - some characters I would have liked to see more of. That's it. The execution is flawless, hence the five stars.

    Emily Climbs picks up shortly after
    Emily of New Moon
    . Our heroine is happily scribbling her days away in the company of her three besties when she learns that all three—Ilse, Perry, and Teddy—are going to high school a few towns away. Strict Aunt Elizabeth will only allow Emily to join them if the girl swears off writing fiction for the next three years. Her soul quailing at this injustice, Emily takes the offer, and half of the book is the diary she keeps to stave off madness during this period.

    Despite Aunt Ruth—a tyrant so Draconian she makes Elizabeth Murray look positively reasonable—and the mean girl machinations of one Evelyn Blake—the four amigos manage to get into all kinds of memorable scrapes, as they always have. Yet something indescribable has changed, particularly between Emily and Teddy. She can sense it but can’t give it a name. She also has a mystical experience that leads to the discovery of a lost child.

    The fiction ban doesn’t stop E.B. Starr from writing, though – she gains recognition for her poems and essays, and becomes aware of burgeoning career opportunities by the end of the book. Will she pursue her muse to New York, the land of publishing, and forsake her heritage? Will she stay on the Island to endure obscurity and small-minded gossip (of which she has already often been a victim)? Is there a third way?

    And then there’s Dean Priest, he of the deep thoughts and striking green eyes, who wants to teach Emily how to write a realistic conversation between lovers. At seventeen years old, she still isn’t sure what precisely he means by this. Never underestimate the ability of a Victorian/Edwardian heroine to not notice when a man is in love with her.

    Like most of Montgomery’s work, the book is episodic, with little overarching plot, but the characters still grow and change. Emily, in particular, matures a lot over the course of the story while maintaining all the key components of her personality. It’s tempting to compare her to her author’s famous Anne, but while the two girls are similar they’re hardly the same. Emily is very much Montgomery herself—brilliant, insightful, caring but proud, romantic but sarcastic, sometimes even cruel. While the girl is repeatedly described as beautiful, she’s so flawed that the tired old accusation, “Mary Sue!”, boomerangs right off her.

    Her three friends are much the same as ever. Ilse is still a big, maladjusted but somehow lovable, spitfire (at one point she even declares her intention to “knock [someone’s] block off” like Lucy van Pelt) who nurses a crush on Perry that is obvious to everyone except its object. Perry is still coarse and clumsy and determined—both in terms of his political career and Emily, who is colder with him than she needs to be. Teddy at least has more than three lines of dialogue in this one, and we see first-hand what a ghoul his mother is instead of just hearing about it, but he’s still a flat designated dreamboat with few if any character traits.

    The host of Aunts are a hoot, as always, especially that suspicious old rascal Ruth, who is finally revealed to be a human being 75% into the book. From Montgomery, one gathers that the average resident of Prince Edward Island in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was obsessed with family histories, never forgot a scandal, and harbored a deep fear of French Canadians, Catholics, and Americans.

    Dean is easily the most developed and intriguing character, after Emily, and both the girl and the book take on a deeper, spookier and more mature aspect every time he shows up. I wish he had stuck around more, but he does get a lot more screen time (page time?) than he did in book I, and I’m grateful for that. This man is actually interesting. Twenty years older than Emily and embittered by implied experience, he has connected deeply with this girl and hopes to marry her when she comes of age. He lights up her imagination and sets her soul loose in a way that sweet little Teddy, for all his good intentions, could never do.

    I think she picks Teddy in book III. I’m not happy about that, but Montgomery probably knew that her fans would prefer a Gilbert/Anne style pairing to Hades and Persephone on PEI. But Teddy only resembles Gilbert superficially. Gilbert and Anne’s first years of acquaintance were fraught with miscommunication and angst, that both of them had to power through, shedding their egos along the way, in order to even become friends. Even after they were married, their differences caused friction—and they kept growing as people all through the series.

    There is no quarrel or friction, or tension of any sort, between Emily and Teddy. They are friends. They have never been anything but friends. Their spats, when they have them, are tiny and meaningless and quickly forgotten. Neither of them poses the tiniest challenge to the other.

    Dean, on the other hand, is Emily’s opposite in many ways—his worldliness against her innocence, his secrecy against her sleeve-dwelling heart, his control-freak tendencies against her wildness. Yet they can talk with each other in a way they could never hope to with anyone else; their hopes, dreams and worries are cut from the same light-and-dark cloth. The chemistry between them is palpable. He is her shadow, and whatever happens in the end, they belong together.

    CONTENT ADVISORY: I feel obligated to feature this because a lot of folks assume a book from the author of Anne of Green Gables must be rated G. This one, like the first in its series, is PG.

    Violence: The usual for this time period. Nothing shown, but a few references to women, children and animals getting beaten.

    Sex: Really nothing to worry about, except that Emily, now in her late teens, is starting to dress like an adult and the young menfolk NOTICE. Rumors of impropriety attach themselves to her, namely that she and Ilse went skinny-dipping (they wore their chemises and bloomers) and that both girls spent the night disreputably with Perry and Teddy (they were caught in a blizzard and had to shelter in an abandoned house overnight).

    I will also use this space to clarify that Dean is not a pedophile, as some of you have so gleefully labelled him.

    A pedophile is an adult with a perverse sexual attraction to small children—ten years old or younger. Someone who likes postpubescent teens is an ephebophile. The last strikes me as an almost unnecessary term, since a kid of either gender over the age of sixteen or seventeen is physically an adult, and was considered one in most societies until the last century or so.

    Emily was thirteen or so when Dean met her, but had an old face for her age and implied to be well along in puberty. I personally wish that their meeting had taken place one or two years later, but nothing inappropriate happened then, or has happened yet.

    Observe that when Dean found Emily she was clinging to a root or vine for dear life, since the ground of the cliff she’d been walking along had fallen away beneath her. If he were really a sexual predator, he would have pulled this helpless girl back to safety and then done something unspeakable to her, or at least pretended to be her friend while plotting to rape her at a later date. Not only did he do no such thing, but he brought her home promptly, safe and sound.

    They have been going on long walks alone together, often at night, for four years now, and he has never once made a move—except arguably for the one time we see him in this book, where she teasingly asks him to help her with some of that romantic dialogue and he almost kisses her—but even then, he waits for her permission and when she panics and grabs a cat to bury her face in, he backs off again. What a sick, perverted man. He gives Harvey Weinstein a run for his money. (I jest).

    Language: Frequent use of the word “ass” which back then was more likely to mean “idiot” than “rear end.”

    Substance Abuse: Perry tells Ilse to drink some whiskey to help her upset stomach—which the town gossips naturally elaborate into a bacchanal.

    All in all, a very good book that leaves me eager for the third and final installment.

  • Ali Book World

    چرا کاور جلد سوم رو گذاشتن برای جلد دوم؟ 🤔...
    این جلد خیلی خیلی خوب بود..
    واقعا عالی
    خیلی دوستش داشتم.
    امیلی عزیزم😍 چالش جالب و جذابی رو توی این جلد پشت سر گذاشت!

  • Phrynne


    L.M. Montgomery's Emily series is, for me, not in the same class as
    Anne of Green Gables but it is still a very pleasant and enjoyable read. Like Anne, Emily is feisty, intelligent, appealing and liable to get into scrapes. In
    Emily Climbs she progresses through her teenage years. Her single minded desire is to be an author and we see her having some small successes in this ambition. She shares important moments in her life with close family and friends and struggles to sort out her feelings towards several young men.
    I very much enjoy the way this author writes and although I do not feel that Emily Starr has the same magic as Anne Shirley, her story is still great fun to read.

  • Jennifer (Insert Lit Pun)

    This series is turning out to be a lot more complex than how I pinned it after the first book. I mean, there are still acres of whimsical nature descriptions (so much purple and gold and red and gray and misty and pearly and magical and kill me), and still aspects that feel derivative of the Anne books. But the methodical way Montgomery has matured Emily’s own writing, and the steady steps that have been taken away from childhood rapture toward bittersweet adulthood, have made me consider the depth of this trilogy more carefully. I have a feeling the third book will be very, very sad in a Good Wives sort of way. My cold heart might be made to feel many feelings.

  • Manybooks

    Just a wee bit too episodic at times for my liking and personal tastes (and with especially the chapters where Emil Byrd Starr and best friend Ilse Burnley go canvassing for magazine subscriptions, where Emily through her supposed second sight then locates little lost Alan Bradshaw feeling at least to and for me a trifle tacked on so to speak and almost as though L.M. Montgomery has felt as though she desperately requires yet another instance of Emily Byrd Starr being presented as someone with supposed psychic powers in order to cement her depiction and description of Emily as a person of magic, artistry, of Emily as a creature of starlight and occasional uncanniness, albeit I do admit absolutely loving the tale of the woman who spanked the king) and that sometimes, in particular the imagined diary entries do tend to interrupt narrative flow a bit, generally L.M. Montgomery's second instalment of the Emily of New Moon trilogy (Emily Climbs) features (in my opinion) as both a more than worthy and adequate sequel to Emily of New Moon and also nicely and effortlessly then ties the latter, ties Emily Climbs to the third novel, to Emily's Quest.

    And indeed, all my mild criticisms of Emily Climbs mentioned above notwithstanding (as well as the personal frustrations with the annoying truth of the matter that I have also found one of my favourite characters from the first novel, from Emily of New Moon, that I have found Dean Priest increasingly turning too clingy, too demanding and strangely jealous in Emily Climbs and with Perry Miller, his constant bragging and that he obviously is incredibly clueless regarding the fact that Emily is NOT AT ALL interested in him in a romantic manner also really getting on my nerves) I certainly have very much enjoyed reading about Emily Byrd Starr's experiences (and multiple escapades) going to high school in Shrewsbury, and in particular how she is increasingly growing up and becoming more and more sure of herself (including how she usually and hilariously does manage to rout arch rival Evelyn Blake with pointed and excruciatingly hilarious sarcasm, finally leaving the latter squirmingly helpless and Emily Byrd Starr as the total victor with the timely and satisfying discovery and outing that Evelyn did in fact copy that poem for which she won an award over Emily's own and non plagiarised submission).

    And yes even L.M. Montgomery's descriptions of Emily having to live with her more often than not rather odious and overbearing Aunt Ruth have generally been rather amusing and enlighteningly engaging. But to be honest, Ruth Dutton's constant refrain that Emily somehow is sly and untrustworthy, that does sometimes feel a bit over-used and exaggerated by L.M. Montgomery and actually has made me even want to at times skim over certain parts of Emily Climbs since reading over and over again about Emily constantly being labelled as someone not to be trusted and consistently denigrated gets a bit same old, same old and lamely tedious (although I have to admit broadly and pleasurably smiling at the episode where Emily finally overhears her aunt praising her to a visitor and realising that perhaps Aunt Ruth does not actually despise her but will of course never ever likely say many if any laudatory and positive words of encouragement to her face).

    Finally, while I do not particularly like (and am also infuriated) in Emily Climbs having Emily's Aunt Elizabeth Murray exact that mandate of Emily not being allowed to write fictional stories in order for her to be able to attend high school in Shrewsbury (as of course it would be the Murrays footing the bill, paying Emily's tuition and expenses and well, especially Aunt Elizabeth strongly considers fiction as writing falsehoods) I do appreciate and cheer that Emily does not simply agree and say yes and amen to Aunt Elizabeth's unreasonable demands of NO WRITING whatsoever and that between both Emily and her cousin Jimmy, they manage to both reason with and convince Aunt Elizabeth that Emily need only promise not to pen "stories" and that writing non fiction and poetry would still be allowed and deemed acceptable.

    And yes, reading Emily Climbs and Emily Byrd Starr's continuous development and maturation as a writer, in my opinion, having Emily be forced to reign in her imagination a bit in order to pen reasonable and acceptable non fiction accounts is actually (in retrospect) a very good ways and means of training Emily's writing skills for the time when she will finally be once again free to write fiction. For when after Great Aunt Nancy's death, Aunt Elizabeth tells her niece that since she has now been provided for education-wise in the latter's will, she also no longer is bound by her promise to not write prose fiction as Aunt Elizabeth Murray will naturally no longer be responsible for providing the funds for Emily's education, to and for me, it sure also does seem as though that after Great Aunt Nancy Priest's death, while Emily is of course ecstatic that she can once again let her imagination run wild and compose, pen fictional stories, her enforced break of having to limit herself to non fiction for much of Emily Climbs has actually been a godsend in many ways, as it also has made Emily's fiction writing less exaggerated, more realistic and believable, that Aunt Elizabeth's demands that her niece not write ANY fiction (while she was paying Emily's expenses) have actually made Emily Byrd Starr into a better and less overly emotional and exaggerated writer across the board.

  • Tracey

    I did some reflecting in my (review? Essay? Piece?) thing on Emily of New Moon about why I don't love Emily as much as Anne, why I haven't read the trilogy in many years when I won't let a year go by Anne-less. Emily Climbs clarifies the matter a bit more.

    There is a great deal more cynicism in Emily's world than in Anne's. I was astonished reading the first chapters at Emily's perceptiveness – and, like any perceptive person moving among the unimaginative and less incisive, she has, very young, developed an almost inevitable shell of jaded sarcasm. Mr. Carpenter doesn't call her "Jade" for nothing. I don't class myself with Emily (or Anne) in terms of intelligence or sensitivity, but still, I am of their ilk. Emily weeps over David Copperfield - oh, how I understand that. Aunt Ruth (not of the race that knows Joseph) upbraids her for the tears – crying over people who don't exist! And, with Emily, I protest that of course they exist. In a meta moment, Emily tells her they are as real as Aunt Ruth is – and so they are, of course. But Ruth is part of the force that demonstrates daily for Emily how flat most people's lives are – none of the terrible deep dark moments for them, but also none of the marvellous highs – nor even the small secret pleasures a combination of being able to see and being able to appreciate can bring. Aunt Elizabeth is Marilla without the sense of humor, and with a solid layer of scarring – from the accident with Jimmy to, probably, the fact that she is single in a time and place where spinsterhood is a wretched condition – to prevent most softer emotions … Aunt Laura has her moments, is loving and more willing and able to share it, but is prim and easily shocked. Uncle Jimmy is wonderful – but not comfortable, always; there is the occasional glimpse of what he might have been, of what was all but killed in him by the fall into the well, and you never quite know when it will make an appearance. Dr. Burnley has gone from bitter and cynical to … rather less bitter and cynical, and somewhat excessive. Aunt Ruth … Were I Emily, I think of the two conditions going to school in Shrewsbury, that I would lodge with Aunt Ruth and that I could not write any fiction for three years, the Aunt Ruth half would be worse. Fiction will still be there when it's over; the scars Aunt Ruth might leave will linger forever. Writing fiction is a passion which would not die in three years; living with Aunt Ruth would be torment. And so it was.

    The idea of the wild, dark vein that exists here, but not in most of the rest of L.M.M.'s work as I know it, intensified as it went on. Emily has a mean streak – not very big, and not well-developed, but expressed now and then in sarcasm and cutting remarks which send people off bleeding and vowing never to mess with her again. And she has an understanding for darkness; she hears goblins as well as wind spirits, and the thought is inescapable that she could have easily gone either way. Had she been raised by Uncle Wallace … I can see her at the age she is ending the trilogy, with a career as a viciously funny writer, slashing more tender folk to shreds and making millions doing it, but treasuring more the string of scalps at her belt than all the money.

    I think I was too young to get hold of all of this the last time I read Emily, and so these three books were not as enjoyable as the sweet and lovely place that is Anne's Avonlea. Anne has her moments – but compare her handling of Josie Pye to Emily's dealings with the evil Evelyn Blake. Anne wins by taking the high road, and Josie Pye, Pye-like, would never recognize her victory; Emily routs Evelyn foot and horse and leaves her bleeding in the dust.

    I loved this tale of the teenaged girl beginning to make a mark for herself. The tangled webs, to reference another LMM work, are beginning to tighten, but they aren't too heavy yet; the future is still completely unwritten, or seemingly so, and hope is high. There is a savor of the time and place, not so very long ago or very far away except in everything that matters; good companionship; wonderful writing; pathos in its best sense and moments that made me laugh aloud. Middle books are often maligned and disregarded things, but this is by far my favorite of the three. I'll never again be able to leave Emily out my list of the Montgomery girls I love.
    ETA: I found the pictures in Emily's room at Aunt Ruth's!
    http://agoldoffish.wordpress.com/2011...

  • Helene Jeppesen

    This continuation of Emily's story was just as heart-warming and enchanting as the first book. Reading about Emily makes me feel happy, cozy and safe all at the same time, and I loved how in this sequel the setting actually changes as Emily grows up (which was not the case with the Anne of Green Gables series). The ending was a little bit surprising, because Emily made an unwise decision in my opinion. Nevertheless, I'm excited to pick up the last installment of this series very soon.

  • Katie Ziegler (Life Between Words)

    So happy to get to know Emily better. So eager to see where her story goes in the last book. LM Montgomery is a treasure. Her books are my happy place.

  • Rachel Aranda

    4.5 stars

    My rating is a little lower than the first book in the trilogy but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy this book. It was really neat seeing Perry, Teddy, Ilsa, and Emily in a bigger city on Prince Edward Island to attend high school. They’ve all grown and matured a lot. It’s impossible to doubt that they’ll all do great things in their lives. I do hope they don’t drift apart as most friends do when they leave high school do but to pursue their dreams it might have to happen... It’s a terrible reality that I can’t bear to think will happen to them all. One has to appreciate that Mrs. Montgomery brought and kept a certain realistic view in her books. Some authors tended to avoid such heavy topics in children’s and YA books back in the early 1900s.

    There were two certain issues that affected my enjoyment of this story. The first issue is that I was expecting a little more romance in this book than what actually occurred. The boys barely appeared in this book! Majority of time it only seemed to happen every once in a while and always ended in a scandal. There were a few precious moments that were taken from these events that were beautiful. Just when I hoped something more would happen someone or some other event would spoil the moment. 😡It was freaking frustrating! 😤 I’m told the 3rd book has more romance in it but it saddens me that there didn’t seem to be a deepening of friendships among all the friends like we saw with Ilsa and Emily.

    My last issue is the ignorance Emily has when it comes to her friendship with Mr. Priest. 🙄 Emily is supposed to be smart yet she can’t figure out that Mr. Priest wants her as more than just a friend. Old Kelly and Mr. Priest even told her point blank in different ways yet she still doesn’t see it. 🤦‍♀️ Some call it the naivety of youth or the fact that she hasn’t fully experienced romance in books or real-life, but this doesn’t seem like a good enough answer. She’s experienced romantic advances with Perry and her cousin both subtle and brazen. Those experiences with the intuition and smarts she has make it seem illogical that she doesn’t see the clues laid before her. I get that this will all probably come to a head in the last book, but I wish Emily hadn’t been made such a dumb intelligent person.

    Even with these issues the book is still charming and adventures are had by new and old characters. (Aunt Ruth is one of the new characters I can’t help but pray for those she dislikes or who try to mess with her family. She’s an old battle axe for sure.) It was delightful being in the world Mrs. Montgomery has created. I still wish that I could visit there and meet the characters even though I know they wouldn’t be alive today. It’s a fitting enough sequel that is worth a read. Just beware fellow readers that some characters from the 1st book don’t appear as much as in the first, so you may face some disappointment in that fact.

  • Elinor  Loredan

    2021 reread:
    Emily's journal entries are my favorite parts of the book. I noticed this time, though, that Emily's voice changes drastically from the end of the first book to the beginning of this one. New Moon ends in "I am going to write a dairy." Then, in this one, suddenly there are no more misspellings, and the childlike tone is gone and replaced by a teenage one. Maybe more time passed than I realized between the books?

    I realize more fully why I identify much more strongly with Emily than with Anne. Emily does not mind so much if people don't like her, while Anne must win everyone over, or at least try. Emily is okay with having a small circle of close friends, with going her own way regardless of whether people approve of her or not, and she allows herself to brood when she needs to. As an introvert, Emily is much closer to my personality, even though I wish I was more like Anne.

    ***
    5 stars for being beautiful, inspiring, funny, magical.
    1 star for being maddening-I desperately want to read the stories Emily writes! And the poems as well.

    Somehow, I like this one even better than Emily of New Moon. I love the journal entries and-yes, even Emily's italics! I love her determination, her innocence that keeps her from seeing Dean is in love with her and waiting for her to grow up so he can show it, and most of all, I love her incessant 'scribbling'.

    The part where Emily hides in the closet because she's wearing the hideous 'Mother Hubbard', and hears two malicious old ladies gossiping about her is funny and moving, especially when Emily goes upstairs and questions, honestly, whether what the women said was true. I like that in her, that she can face up to herself and recognize both her faults and strengths.

    One thing I've noticed with the Emily series is that LMM doesn't use haunting, mystical last lines, like in some of the Anne books.

    Anne of Avonlea: 'And over the river in purple durance the echoes bided their time.'

    Anne of the Island: 'Over meadows where winds of hope and memory blew.'

    Those lines just make me shiver with delight every time. And LMM doubted that she had crested the 'Alpine Path!'

    To get back to Emily, the lack of last lines like those doesn't take away from her books at all. It's just an interesting contrast. The last lines in the Emily books seem more to reveal Emily's voice. The first one ends with, 'I am going to write a dairy, that it may be published when I die,' and the second one is, 'Perhaps Teddy was only shy!' Those ending sentences show Emily's autobiographic character, to me.

    I like the almost-grown-up and adult Emily, whereas with Anne I felt a little sad when she was grown and had left her lively ramblings behind.

    I love comparisons, but sometimes they can detract from the unique values of books I compare with each other.

  • _PARNIAN_

    آه امیلی هفده ساله‌ی من...
    دوستت دارم. ستایشت می‌کنم. تو همینطور داری در مسیر آلپ پیش می‌روی و موفق هم می‌شوی. تو، ای ستاره!

  • Celeste

    Emily Byrd Starr is a delightful character. She’s charming and intelligent and fiercely talented, with a penchant for finding herself in embarrassing situations that keeps her from feeling inhumanly perfect. She marches to the beat of her own drum in a way that is still uncommon, and her deep appreciation for the beauty of nature resonates with me. I adore her on the surface, but I think she and I have developed a relationship that will never grow beyond friendly acquaintances. As much as I try to connect with her on a deeper level, we can’t seem to become the bosom buddies that Anne Shirley and I are. Which is wild, because I actually have more in common with Emily than I do with Anne. I guess there just isn’t room in my heart for both of them.

    “Well, it all comes to this, there's no use trying to live in other people's opinions. The only thing to do is to live in your own.”

    This second installment in the trilogy is about Emily’s adolescence and young womanhood. She finds herself departing from New Moon (during the week, anyway, since she still comes home on weekends) and attending high school, which was more closely related to the undergrad colleges of today than our present high schools. The aunt she is living with is even harsher than Aunt Elizabeth, watching Emily’s every move and waiting to pounce on any act of which she doesn’t approve. Slowly but surely, Emily’s writing takes off, proving to her family and friends that her “scribblings” have merit.
    "The discovery of beautiful and interesting words always gives me joy. When I find a new, charming word I exult as a jewel-seeker and am unhappy until I've set it in a sentence.”

    Though I can’t manage to love Emily as much as I do Anne, this series has more of Montgomery’s voice and presence than any of the Anne of Green Gables books. I love how she inserts her own opinions as a narrator in among Emily’s thoughts and deeds. It’s an adorable addition and one of the highlights of the series for me. Her descriptions of nature are also second to none, and are often breathtakingly beautiful even though they’re merely words on a page. She also includes snippets of amazing writing advice that I plan to apply to my own writing. To the best of my ability, anyway.
    "You'll never write anything that really satisfies you though it may satisfy other people.”

    Don’t think that I in any way dislike this book or series because I keep comparing Emily to Anne. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Emily series is delightful and wholesome and pure in a way that’s incredibly inviting, and Emily is a character whom you can’t help but root for with your whole heart. I truly believe that, had I met Emily first, Anne couldn’t have found her way into my heart past the delight that is Emily Byrd Starr. It was mere happenstance that I fell in love with Anne before I had the pleasure of meeting Emily. But I still deeply desire to see how Emily’s life turns out, and I feel more invested in that outcome than I did regarding the Anne books, so that’s something. I can also unequivocally see myself rereading this series when I need something comfortably lovely to take me away from the modern world.

  • Kailey (Luminous Libro)

    Rereading this for the tenth or twelfth time, I enjoy it just as much as ever!

    Emily is growing up, honing her writing skills, and getting an education at Shrewsbury high school along with her friends, Ilse, Perry, and Teddy. She gets into innocent mischief, makes honest mistakes, and generally has little adventures around PEI.

    I love the character development that Emily has in this book. There are some surprising developments with her family clan, the Murrays, as they begin to recognize that she's no longer a little girl that they can bully.

    I love all the weird and funny adventures that Emily has while she is hanging out with Ilse. Their friendship is so wild and true and beautiful. It's a delight to read about two girls being such close friends, sharing secrets and dreams.

    There is only one storyline in the book that I don't like, and that is Dean Priest. He's basically a pedophile, and he creeps me out.

  • Amy

    I wonder if I picked this trilogy up too late. I've reached the point where I find Anne just a touch annoying. (And I've always been an Anne.) So I assume I'd have had more sympathy for Emily if I read her, say, in middle school.
    As it is, I found the episodic nature of this book slow and hard to get invested in. Emily or one of her friends gets embroiled in a scandal. Emily's family reproves her. She gives them the Murray look. They give in. Rinse and repeat.
    The scene with the dog was hilarious. But, frankly, I don't understand Emily's 'I belong at New Moon' shtick.

  • زهرا نجاری

    به طرز ترسناکی حس میکنم این کتاب رو حتی از آنه شرلی بیشتر دوست دارم. و چقدر خوبه! چقدر خوبه که همچین کتابهایی نوشته شدن... بی صبرانه منتظر شروع کتاب سوم هستم!

  • Nastaran")

    4.5✨
    مونتگمری هربار با یه کتاب جدید بهم ثابت می‌کنه که چرا نویسنده‌ی موردعلاقه‌مه. باعث می‌شه دوباره با طبیعت و تمام چیزهایی که توی دنیا دوستشون دارم ارتباط برقرار کنم و برای تک‌تک اتفاقات کوچیک هیجان‌زده بشم. باعث می‌شه دلم بخواد تجربه و زندگی کنم❤️✨

  • Katri

    The Emily books have been with me for a longer time than most people I know. I have no idea how many times I've read them, and I could probably quote many passages from them by heart. How can one review such books, then? I won't try. I will only say that these books delight me to no end, and Emily Climbs is perhaps my favourite of the trilogy, because of the youthful dreaminess and enthusiasm of Emily, because it has so much about her writing and I don't know for what other reasons. Montgomery's writing is beautiful and charming, she can make her characters so real and alive, and her books give me great joy.

  • Maureen

    I like the Emily books for their exploration of women making it as professional writers. However, the problem with the Emily trilogy is that the characters don't feel real in the way those in the Anne series do - they don't come to life and leap off the page with vivacity. Ilse, Teddy and Perry never feel as fully fleshed as characters like Diana, Gilbert and Marilla. Plus, Dean Priest gets creepier with every book.

  • Lisa Wolf

    Delightful story of teen Emily, finding her voice and finding her way. A really sweet book, very enjoyable.

  • Maja (puszyste.ksiazki)

    3.5

  • Kate

    This is the second book of a lesser-known series by the author of Anne of Green Gables. The Anne books are more popular, but the Emily books are deeper and darker, and some of my favorite young adult literature. Like Anne, Emily is an orphan. Finding herself alone in the world, she goes to live with conservative relations. The three books chart her coming of age, her college years and her professional endeavors, and are excellently written. Emily is a character of ups and downs -- people who dismiss L.M. Montgomery as a flowery girl's writer have never read the Emily books (or are idiots). When she finally achieves hard-won and often bittersweet success (in life, in work, in love), you are soaring with her.

    Montgomery's work is constantly under-estimated, and the way the books are marketed doesn't help (the flowery script, the swoony illustrations). There are many layers at work in her stories, and some pioneering feminist concepts tucked in between the deep appreciation of nature, the commentary on the stuffy contemporary society of her day, and the delightful, well-drawn characters.

  • Christine

    I forgot how much I love this entire series.

    When people think of L.M. Montgomery, they think of Anne of Green Gables. But, Emily is, arguably, Montgomery’s best heroine. She starts out a little girl lost and blossoms throughout the entire series.

    But, I think what I love most is the character growth of those that Emily’s life touches. Her aunts, uncles, friends, teachers… Even those who seem beyond any little bit of sympathy in the beginning, turn out to be loyal to Emily in the end.

    Emily Climbs is the story of Emily’s high school years, away from New Moon. She really does grow up a lot in the three years she’s gone. And she goes through some exceedingly funny scrapes!

    I really love this series–and I’m wishing I’d started the rereading sooner.

  • Nika

    خاله روت با لحنی سرد و دلسوزانه گفت:《خیلی بد است که تو اینقدر زود ذوق میکنی،امیلی.💔》
    اینطور دلسوزی کردن حرصم را در می آورد به همین خاطر با دلخوری گفتم:《اما خبر ندارید کسی که دیر ذوق میکند چه لذت هایی را از دست میدهد هیچ کاری جالب تر از رقصیدن دور آتشی بزرگ نیست،پس چه دلیلی دارد که غصه ی خاکستر بعد از آتش را بخوریم؟🔥》

  • Ksenia (vaenn)

    Отака "Емілі" мені подобається - менше сімейних цінностей, більше навчання та писання. Загалом не маю нічого категорично проти першого пункту, але Монтгомері настільки тяжіє до певних сюжетних шаблонів, що оповідь вже бува зависає на межі саркастичного самоцитування, але чомусь побоюється її перетнути. Натомість тема шаленого снобізму "перших колоністів" розкрита уповні і дуже не по-доброму.

    Друга книжка - це вже чесний янґ-адалт за сучасними стандартами (Емілі від 14 до 17), що суттєво впливає на проблематику. Але небуквально - тут навіть про дівочу конкуренцію більше, ніж про перше кохання (і славабогині!) - зате багацько сторінок присвячено соціальним тонкощам (як з тим снобізмом) та тому, як Емілі оцінює власні шанси "вбудувати себе" в прийнятні рамки (і чи варто це взагалі робити). Ну, і головне: Емілі - це моя ідеальна Енн. Ключовою темою роману таки стали письменницькі амбіції та варіанти емансипації за їхньою допомогою. У деяких в��падках автобіографічність рятує Всесвіт - вправи у стилі, заробляння світською хронікою містечкового масштабу, спроби прилаштувати поезії та оповідання у журнали, перші гонорари... Про зародження кар'єри юної письменниці авторка пише з розумінням, ніжністю і стриманою іронією, що змушують палко вболівати за те, щоб у цієї дівчинки все вийшло!

  • Abbie Lewis

    Montgomery has a beautiful way of writing. I’d say this series is a real life version of Anne of Green Gables. She doesn’t hide Emily’s flaws and you see Montgomery’s religion even clearer or lack of belief in God. The characters are more raw and real as opposed to the characters in her Anne of Green Gables series who are romanticized in my opinion. Not my favorite but an interesting study in comparison to her other writings.

  • Tarissa

    This was a WONDERFUL sequel to the first Emily book. I honestly can't decide which book was better than the other.

    Parts of the book are in diary form, while others are set in regular story form, so you get an all-around view of Emily's life. I like how the author weaved the two forms together.

    I loved the storyline; it seems like very simple, little things that take place, but as you reflect on it, you realize the story is actually quite deep in thought, and well plotted. Emily is allowed to attend the Shrewbury school where her friends are going. However, the rule is that she must live with grumpy, old Aunt Ruth, who seemingly has stricter rules than Aunt Elizabeth did when Emily lived with her. And Aunt Ruth is always accusing Emily of being sly, which runs down Emily's patience.

    During the time that Emily lives with her Aunt Ruth, she is not allowed to write fiction, which seems to put a damper on Emily's future career of writing. Her old teacher, who has helped guide her [Mr. Carpenter] says the time away from fiction will improve Emily's writing ability. Yet still, her wild, imaginative mind can hardly fathom being separated from her beloved hobby.

    I am really anticipating the third and final Emily book now, to see how her story ends!

  • Someone Who Reads

    امیلی در نیومون معرفی داستان و شخصیتاس و امیلی و صعود رشد و پیشرفت روابط.
    یکی از جالبترین شخصیت ها دین پریسته. ارتباط دوطرفه و درک متقابل دین و امیلی بعضی وقتا واقعا باعث میشه حسودیم شه :) البته گاهی همین رابطه ترسناک هم میشه. احساس مالکیتی که نسبت به امیلی داره یه سنگینی ای داره. هر جا که دین توی داستان حضور داره یهو فضا عوض میشه. انگار با هر برخوردی که امیلی و دین دارن, امیلی یکم بزرگتر و بالغتر میشه که از نوع نوشته های دفتر خاطراتش هم معلومه.
    فرم اپیزودیک داستان و سریالی بودنش رو هم خیلی دوست دارم.