Damn it.

When I linked to the Emily Byrd Starr Wikipedia page, I accidentally found out How Everything Works Out In The End (i.e. Who She Marries).

I only just finished Emily of New Moon, and so maybe my feelings will change, but at the moment, my only response (that I feel comfortable posting here) is:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Comments

[E. M.]

Stick with it. You know LMM is the master of the best endings ever. I'm sure you opinion will change. :o)

[Sarah]

I have to agree with the above poster...and even if your opinion doesn't change on that one, there are so many other things going on in the books that make them completely worth reading. Of course, to qualify that, I find Emily more interesting than Anne in many ways and my copies of the Emily books have been read to death.

[R.J. Anderson]

WORD to that.

I've always found L.M. Montgomery's romantic pairings a bit unsatisfying, really - maybe not too surprising considering her own life, which seemed to have a lot of broken romances and an eventual unhappy marriage. But do keep reading the Emily books, because they just get better and better, even if Teddy's kind of blah and Dean Priest is frankly kind of creepy.

[Kristi]

Whoops, the above comment was me!

[R.J. Anderson]

Me, I liked Dean quite a bit to start and was irritated that he had to get turned into El Creepy Controlling, because even as a teen it seemed to me like just another example of how the handicapped guy never gets the girl. Feh. At least Dean had a PERSONALITY, unlike Mr. Cardboard Cut-Out Teddy.

Still good books, though.

[dangermom]

Dean's supposed to be creepy, though, right?

[Leila]

Well, like I said, I've only read Book One -- but at the moment, it's Perry, all the way. I looooove him.

[Bea]

Yeah, it'll be better after you've more. The Emily series is sooo much better than the Anne one (and I loved the Anne books too!).

[i hate emo kids]

obvs it's teddy. i bet you probably thought anne would marry royal gardner. or that one with the ears that becomes a minister.

pffft.

[Brooke]

Dean Priest is was more than just kind of creepy. He's what, twenty-five years older than she is? And meets her when she's TWELVE? And says something to her along the lines of, "I think I'll just wait until you're eighteen before I start courting you?" EUUURRRRGH! And yes, I know that things were Different back in the Olden Days. But things weren't all THAT different. Twelve?!? Ick. Ick. Ick.

[jess]

The age difference always creeped me out with Dean - I thought he would have been a great character if he hadn't been interested in Emily romantically.

[Gina Dalfonzo]

Not to worry. :-) It's true Montgomery had trouble bringing her romantic heroes to life sometimes. She provides details here and there that she could have developed, but never really does. (At least, that's my view of it, but then I have a mania for finding little teeny details that could be turned into major character development. See, they always said that writing fanfiction would rot my brain!)

But Teddy really does turn out to be kind of a sweetie, I think. Underdeveloped, and not good at speaking up when he should, but still a sweetie. And (vaguely spoilerish), for a while he and Emily get a bit of a dynamic going between her pride and his shyness -- which she thinks is imperiousness and controllingness -- that complicates things a little.

And -- without giving too much away -- one of the other characters develops something of a talent for pointing out Teddy's faults, just in case you were afraid LMM would make him completely flawless and one-dimensional. :-)

[babs]

I hear you on the Noooooo! thing.

But like keep with it. What they said. Because there's a lot of good stuff that has nothing to do with the romantic pairing. I have a feeling that when I first read it (and probably this is still slightly true) I would've gone with Perry. I tend to be torn between the dynamic boys and the more nice ones in my own life. (Perry vs. Teddy) And in my universe, the one most like Perry ended up being gay which wouldn't have occurred in a LMM book.

Also, Emily and Teddy's relationship gets more interesting in the second book.

And, in the series of Emily, the guy who played Dean was pretty attractive. Or like my type. And yes, it's creepy that he likes her. But he also was kinda related to her which also would be a problem for us.

[Clare J. Troy]

I guess I'm quite a creepy person myself as (whilst I certainly don't condone thirty-six-year-olds falling in love with twelve-year-old girls, even if, as in Dean's case, they only plan to make a move when the adored object is old enough) I absolutely loved Dean Priest (aside from lying to Emily about her book, of course) and (SPOILER) wished he'd won out in the end - Teddy has to be the most boring character to (dis)grace the pages of fiction - quite an achievement, in a sense, given that LMM is usually excellent in her characterisation. It's perhaps a bit much to say I HATE Teddy - he's too rubbish and insipid a character even for that, but I do want to tell Emily to GET OVER IT and HE'S NOT WORTH IT. I honestly don't know why she wastes her time whinging about him. Essentially, love him or hate him, from a critical, objective angle Dean is a wonderful, well-constructed character - which is why he elicits such strong responses, whereas the general response to Tedious Teddy (sorry), even from those who like him, is pretty much "meh".