Anne of Windy Poplars....is good?

I am not sure if I've ever mentioned this before, but I struggle quite a bit with insomnia. I just have one of those minds that I can never fully turn off. Even when I sleep, I am a lucid dreamer, creating my own twists and turns in some fantastical story, starting dreams days old where I left off. So, my insomnia tends to keep me awake for quite some time when I go to bed, thinking, pondering, pouring over my worries, which is why I always take a book to bed with me and have my YouTube app on my phone all set to go with no volume (to keep from waking my husband). I find it relaxing to watch people create their own pieces of art, mainly multimedia artwork. On top of having a hard time falling asleep, I also tend to wake up frequently during the night as well, leaving me in the same predicament. Last night I awoke in the middle of the night and was not interested in lulling myself back asleep with a random YouTube video; I wanted to read something, which I have not found myself doing much of lately. Of course, because I haven't really been reading much lately, I did not take a book to bed last night. This had me scrambling in my nearby closet where I store all of my books that don't fit on my one tiny shelf downstairs, to see if I could find something interesting. I ended up taking Anne of Windy Poplars back to bed and read the first ten pages. I was immediately pulled in, and surprised that I was!

Now, I have a weird frenemy association with Ann of Green Gables books. I have seen the movies when I was younger, watching them as my mom enjoyed them, but to be honest, I disliked Anne. I found her to be obnoxious and slightly annoying, and I simply just did not relate to her as a young girl at all. I was a very serious child (and I suppose I am still just as serious as an adult); I never understand why people fawn over Anne. However, I also owned a beautiful little box set of The Anne of Green Gables when I was a kid. For whatever reason, I fawned over that set of books. I cannot remember for the life of me how I came to own them, but I thought they were beautiful. I looked at them frequently and took great care of them. But...I never read them. As an adult, over the past 6 years or so, I've had that little box set in my mind, wondering where it ended up and how can I get my hands on it once again? Most of my childhood things that I made an effort to save have long since disappeared. Not many people in my family are very sentimental, or at least are not sentimental towards the idea of another's sentimentality, meaning that when I married and moved, all of my precious childhood things were done away with before I could retrieve them. I was actually quite saddened by this when I was able to return to our family home and went in the basement to go through my old boxes that I so carefully placed and stored down there, finding...nothing. I was an odd child that purposely kept most of my toys and things in pristine condition, saving them to give my own daughters when I was older. When that time came, there was nothing left of my efforts. But I suppose that is the way of the world.
But, that little Ann of Green Gables box set has been my mind, making me wonder about her. I haven't really picked any of L.M. Montgomery's books up, because I still have those strong remembrances of Anne being obnoxious. But I have wondered if I would like any of her books where Anne is a bit older, a bit more mature. While I was at our local base library giveaway a few months back, I snagged a couple of books in this series. I would have taken them all if they had them, but I was only able to find two, the Anne of Windy Poplars and Rilla of Ingleside. I have to say, L.M. Montgomery has written the beginning of Anne of Windy Poplars so beautifully, she may just bring me out of my reading slump. I am now actually finding myself wanting to know what happens to Anne in this book, and to read more of the world through Anne's eyes, so that I can know what parts of the world are grand to be friends with and to know the colors of things that have no color. This may actually be the book that pulls me in to read more in the series. Not sure what the overall view is of this book in general, from avid Anne lovers in comparison to the series as a whole, but so far, I like it! I am curious to see how much this book will pull me into the series, and if I will actually ever read through that tiny prized box set (now through mismatched library books), and still loath child Anne as much as I did when I was younger, or if I will grow to like her...