Title: The Blue Castle
Author: L.M. Montgomery
Genre: Classic/Romance
Trigger Warnings: Emotional abuse, death, death of children (mentions), serious/fatal illness
Back Cover:
An unforgettable story of courage and romance. Will Valancy Stirling ever escape her strict family and find true love?
Valancy Stirling is 29, unmarried, and has never been in love. Living with her overbearing mother and meddlesome aunt, she finds her only consolation in the “forbidden” books of John Foster and her daydreams of the Blue Castle–a place where all her dreams come true and she can be who she truly wants to be. After getting shocking news from the doctor, she rebels against her family and discovers a surprising new world, full of love and adventures far beyond her most secret dreams.
Review:
It’s a tragedy that the Anne of Green Gables series is L.M. Montgomery’s most popular work, because The Blue Castle is objectively better.
Okay, maybe not objectively, but I never could get into the Anne books and I adored this one.
Valancy Stirling has spent her life stifled by her controlling mother, her overbearing extended family, and being homely and unmarriageable, which make her a social pariah. When the doctor tells her she has only a year, and quite likely less, to live, she realizes she’s going to die without having ever really lived. And she realizes that she won’t be around to face the consequences, so she might as well do what she wants.
And so she starts doing what she wants and not doing what she doesn’t want, starting with spending time alone when she isn’t sleeping (yes, her mother/family were that controlling). The scene where she starts displaying her newfound independence over lunch with her extended family is an absolute delight. Valancy has never been allowed to do anything that hasn’t gone through a rigorous approval process from the entire extended family, so she has plenty of wonderful ways to rebel, from wearing her hair how she wants to reading during the day to taking care of an old friend with a terminal illness.
And it is fantastic. Every single moment I’ve ever had of wanting to tell my relatives to mind their own business and let me live my own life got to live vicariously through Valancy. Even though the story is haunted by her impending death, it is a sweet and optimistic story of Valancy finding happiness and falling in love for the first time in her life. And, as one would expect from this kind of story, it has a happy ending.
Is it trite and fairly predictable? Yes. I guessed most of the twists while reading, but I’m sure I could have guessed the one that I didn’t anticipate if I’d thought about it. Someone who didn’t like it could call it “predictable” and they’d be right. But it was light, and fun, and cute, and overall just so entertaining. It’s not at all a serious read, but it is delightful just the same.
Bluejay Reads 