I have never been into Anne of Green Gables, so I'm sure there are tons of references I missed. But Anne of Greenville was super fun to spend some time with, despite all the terrible people in her new hometown. The strength of this book is the fun characters and the joyful and real interactions they share. Anne's moms are generally the best. I also appreciated how most of the parents and teachers were depicted as real people who could also be kind of cool. Overall, a joyful, fairly simple little book.

Anne of Greenville by Mariko Tamaki is modern-day reimagining of the classic tale of Anne of Green Gables. In this story, Anne is new to small town USA in Greenville. She has two moms and is half-Japanese American, so she stand out even without her over-the-top personality. After a failed disco performance Anne meets her best friend, Berry and soon comes into contact with her possibly one true love - Gilly. Or wait- is she caught in a love triangle? Oh no! Starting off strong, I think the author really did capture the essence of Anne Shirley - and that may be the one thing I enjoyed about this novel. After a few chapters it was easy to believe that Anne was a real modern-day version of the Anne we all love from Green Gables. The excessive personality was nailed and the tangents that Anne went off on were believable to the character. Now let's talk about the other characters from Anne of Green Gables in this, Diana Barry as Berry and Gilly as Gilbert...maybe? I mean...that's what you would think, right? Spoilers aside, I don't think either of these characters fit into the characters they were supposed to resemble or at least the characters the readers were lead to believe they were based off of. The townsfolk in Greenville...were MEAN. Like, cruel really. In any other place these children would get expelled and maybe even prosecuted for some of the things that they said and did. I understand the author wanting to convey that Anne was not welcome in Greenville...but this was almost unnecessary. While I felt the beginning of the novel was a bit of a rocky start, it picked up towards the middle to the end and I was thinking "okay I might really enjoy this book." So rarely has a novel disappointed my in the last fifteen or so pages. The novel was cruising along at a good pace and then came to a screeching halt that left me completely and utterly confused. And disappointed. I felt almost cheated? Besides the BIG thing I feel like Anne's treatment by the townsfolk also ends at a screeching halt and is not resolved well at all. While I was originally excited for this retelling of Anne of Green Gables I ended up being disappointed. I'm not sure I would recommend this to fans of the classic tale. I actually think people who know nothing about the original Anne Shirley will enjoy it more... Thank you to Disney Publishing Worldwide (Melissa de la Cruz Studio) and Netgalley for an arc of this novel. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.