I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

To be entirely honest, I did not finish this book. I got through more than half of it, but really never found connection in the characters or in the story. This is in part my own fault has I have no previous connection with Anne of Green Gables, so the references got lost on me. The story felt pretty predictable as Anne is a stand-out girl in a conservative town, who find a supportive friend also considered an "other" in the town. Anne's mothers are supportive, while still allowing her to find her own way. She is badly bullied for her flamboyance, which her peers correlate to her sexual orientation. The story was following an expected path, and I would assume the story would end happily. The writing was enjoyable, and the story was fun. I imagine this would be a fun read for those familiar with Anne of Green Gables.

I had never read or watched Anne of Green Gables or anything related to it, but figured I’d give this one a try as a fan of Mariko Tamaki’s graphic novels. It was a pretty straight forward, fast-paced read with an exuberant protagonist and some really great relationships, particularly Anne’s with her mothers. But Greenville? Greenville sucks. The eventual tolerance the Shirley’s are afforded seemed like a rushed resolution after all of the hatred flung their way. Overall, it was a fairly fun, quick read and has me considering picking up the classic!

Thank you to NetGalley and Disney Publishing for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a lovely story, a cute, very sweet romance, inspired by Anne of Green Gables. It wasn't so much a retelling as a story using Anne as basic inspiration and a source of character names, which as a big Anne fan was a little disappointing, but it can stand on its own.

Mariko Tamaki has done a fantastic job at reimagine this class story. i really enjoyed the take as well as the storyline she has created!

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

Another fabulous story from Mariko Tamaki! Being a lover of the original Anne of Green Gables, I couldn't wait to pick up this fresh retelling. Tamaki's queer adaptation was joyful and still brought the joy of reading the original novel. Readers who have never read Montgomery's book will still fall in love with Anne. It was amazing to see Anne brought into the modern times and flush with a new love and new pitfalls. I can't wait to recommend it to many of my students who love the classics and the retellings currently being released.

This feels very Brandy Colbert The Only Black Girls in Town in a good way and Tamaki is a phenomenal creator. This one had the telltale signs of Tamaki.

The quirky adaptation of Anne of Green Gables worked, though I think anything that's a retelling can never truly add up because if the original is beloved you're always more critical. I am this way about any retelling. Some authors want to go point-by-point addressing everything in the original (Tamaki did this) while others make it a more loose interpretation. It was tolerable though a few elements could have dropped away and I wouldn't have missed them and it still would have been a solid retelling.

Either way, Anne is an adopted Asian kid with two moms, one of which is the new vice principal of Anne's school. There's prejudice and bullying toward both Anne and about Anne's mom and their moving to this small town featuring a stereotypical close mindedness and unwillingness to be accepting and understanding from Anne's dyed orange hair to her love of disco music and now she's going to be in the play and gets... Peter Pan, the lead role.

It was an enjoyable read.

The prose of Anne’s first person narration, while effervescent and cheerful, serves as an object lesson in the value of some distance with an omniscient third person narrator. Which is to say the prose here is exhausting.

There are a few problems here. One is that I do struggle with Anne retellings in a way I don’t with other retellings perhaps because this one is coded into my DNA in a way that others are not. The other problem is I think I’m trying to capture the spirit or this story Tamaki held into a lot of the wrong things so that it doesn’t feel very close to Anne in any of the most meaningful ways.

This was a did not finish for me. I only got about 10% of the way through the book, but it did not feel Anne of Green Gables-esque for me. Too much use of words in all caps was distracting.

I loved the premise of this book, the setting, and the supporting cast of characters. I found Anne to be a little irritating though, I think it's because it's been a long time since I was a high schooler trying to find my place. I think if I were a teenager currently going through that then I would definitely relate to it. The song references made me want to make a playlist to listen as I read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read in exchange for an honest review.

Admittedly it has been a few years (decades) since I've read Anne of Green Gables. Despite that, this was very relatable - the names of the characters, the small town charm, the story. I love love love the modern twist and updated characters. It was such a great read that I found myself hoping there will be another one to show what happens next in Anne's story!

Anne of Greenville is a modern retelling of Anne of Green Gables. I was a huge fan of Anne of Green Gables so I was very excited to get the opportunity to read this book.

Overall, I did enjoy reading this, and blew through it in just two days. There were many things that were very similar to the original stories, with the names and some personality traits. I loved the stream of consciousness storytelling of Anne, and how she easily went off on tangents that eventually led her back to the original point.

There were some major updates to the plot. One main one being Anne was biracial (one parent was Japanese) and adopted by two LGTBQ women as a young child. They moved to a small town (Greenville) where they had difficulty fitting in due to their family makeup, as well as their strong personalities. Anne and her moms faced significant racism and homophobia from the community members, which led to a lot of the conflict in the story. There were a lot of references to 70s music and fashion, which were a fun addition.

If you are a hardcore fan of the original story, you might have a difficult time getting past some of the significant character differences, such as Gilbert Blythe being split into two different female characters, with one of those characters being a combination of Gilbert and Diana. But you could still follow this book even if you weren’t familiar with Anne of Green Gables at all.

My biggest complaint was how quickly it ended with everything supposedly resolved and tied up into a nice bow. That seemed unrealistic to me given the intense conflict with a lot of Anne’s classmates and community members.

I received a digital ARC of this book thanks to the publisher and NetGalley.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Mariko Tamaki, and the publisher of this book for the eARC copy in exchange for an honest review.
Anne is a disco loving, roller skating, Japanese-American positive teen. But when her and her moms move to Greenville for a job, the small town is not what Anne thought it would be. She is constantly picked on for her family and for who she likes. Can Anne hold out for her new crush and best friend or will Greenville be too much for her to handle.

I connected with this story because it reminded me of the small town I grew up in. The town I grew up in was not accepting of others unless you were just like them. I and several friends were different and not always accepted. I am thankful that my town has progressed from the town it once was. I think some of the people in the town got better too as the story went on.

Although Anne's energy was captured perfectly, that was the only thing this book did well.

If you're looking for an Anne of Green Gables retelling, don't believe the subtitle, because this isn't it. Apart from Anne, her energy, the fact that she was adopted (but, like, when she was a baby), her dying her hair orange, and SOME character names referring to old characters, I would not classify this as a retelling. The names could be changed and this could have been a story all its own.

This book seemed too bent on being novel and progressive, but I felt like it was pushing everything too much. Don't get me wrong, so much representation is a really good thing, but it irritates me when that stuff makes up an entire plot. Characters are not just their sexualities.

The plot wasn't all that exciting either. It was just about the new girl in town dealing with bullies, and that was it. Now, I get it. Bullying is real and terrible and needs to be talked about. And it's good to have a strong female character who stands up for herself, her family, and her friends. That is a good role mode. But when that's the WHOLE plot? Yeah, I got bored.

All in all, don't go into this expecting an Anne retelling, because that's not what you're getting. I liked the energy, and I loved the cover, but in all, Anne of Greenville is a skip for me.

This is a really interesting idea for a book, but I had a hard time getting into it. As a lover of Anne of Green Gables I felt like it diverged from the source material a little too much. Had I not read Anne of Green Gables, I may have enjoyed it more.

I was honestly really disappointed in this book! I had such high hopes after absolutely loving Samantha Markum’s last book, but this one had none of the charm and personality. Its plot is sweet and its characters funny, but it all felt very canned and predictable. I enjoyed it, but I was not impressed by it.

An updated retelling of Anne of Green Gables, this seems to be written more for the Gen X nostalgia crowd than Gen Z YA readers, but it is quite enjoyable for someone who fits squarely in the former demographic.. Having lived through the disco era and competed as part of a roller skating team in the late 70s/early 80s and having viewed the classic Megan Follows TV versions of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, I felt right at home reading this book. Other than bringing gay themes more to the front of the story (including making the main character a lesbian) and updating the time period, this book hues pretty closely to the source material and includes the major characters you will remember if you have read the source material or seen the classic TV productions or the newer Netflix update. A quick, enjoyable read!

CN: all the homophobia, all the slurs, racism too.

I had to push myself to finish this book. Not because it's poorly-written–nope, it is a surprisingly fast book, with Anne's charm pushing through the tough parts–but because I went through a tenth of what this kid did in high school and that was too much. I hated these parents, I want them to pack up, say, "ENOUGH," and GO. But I think this book needs to get into the hands of the readers who need it. They'll learn to calm down, to negotiate, to compromise, to push through, to survive.

I just wish they didn't have to.

⭐️ BOOK REVIEW ⭐️
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ANNE OF GREENVILLE (⭐️⭐️)
Retellings/reimaginings of classic stories are really tricky to do. On one hand, you want to be original and bring something new to a beloved and well known story, but you also want to stay true to the characters and world that’s already been built. For this book specifically, I think it’s best to erase all comparisons to Anne of Green Gables from your mind because it’s not doing the story any favors. The story of a young queer, biracial girl moving to an intolerant small town is interesting enough on its own that it really didn’t need the Green Gables connection other than to maybe draw readers in? Which, I get, but still, it didn’t land well with me. Comparisons aside, I wasn’t completely sold on this one. Anne’s inner dialogue was CHAOTIC. Tangents on tangents on tangents to the point where I would completely forget what was originally happening. I kept forgetting she was supposed to be in high school because the maturity level was just not there. Also, bullying is a central part of this story, but it was so excessive. It felt like almost every other page had racial or homophobic slurs. The dialogue was a little choppy for my taste, a lot of short sentences and pieces of dialogue that could have been put together more cohesively. And the ending was so abrupt and didn’t tie up things very well for me. I don’t know, maybe I’m just not the right audience for this one? I wish I liked it more, I was very excited about it.
TW: racism, homophobia, sexism, bullying, body shaming


Thank you to NetGalley and Disney Publishing Worldwide for an advanced digital reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

I will forever be indebted to Mariko Tamaki for giving me the contemporary Anne of Green Gables retelling I didn't know I needed. I grew up deeply lost in Anne and so emotionally misunderstood, just like her, in middle school. Reading Anne, smack dab in a small town with her beautifully queer moms, who just can't seem to stay away from trouble? My heart could not have been ready. I didn't even see the ending coming, it was so true to Anne I reread it gobs of times just to stay in the Anne-ness of it all.

Although this book is full of nods to the original, you don't have to have read any of the Anne of Green Gables series to enjoy this story. Anne is a biracial girl at a new town seemingly set on snuffing out her light. Any reader will get swept into her hope and disappointment. Super cozy read with just the right amount of conflict (racism, fatphobia, anti-queer conflict mostly) to make the ending so rewarding.

Thanks to NetGalley and Melissa de la Cruz Studio for an early read in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks for the ARC, Netgalley!

I'm not sure I'm the audience for this book. I got a little over a quarter of the way in, and could not bring myself to read anymore. It's a cute idea, and I'm sure younger women would love it. But, the main character's POV grated against my nerves the entire time I tried to read it. This book is definitely early YA- a transitory book from mid-grades to YA.