Emily's Quest: Emily Byrd Starr, #3 -- L.M. Montgomery

It only took me TWO YEARS to get around to reading the third Emily book. You should be very proud of me.

(Seriously, you should. I hate* finishing series that I love: As regular readers probably already know, I still haven't finished Season Seven of Buffy.)

So, Emily's Quest. As I said in today's Kirkus post, 224 pages of it felt like being stabbed in the chest. But in a good way.

Well, mostly.

Emily Starr and Teddy Kent belong together. Emily knows it, and she thinks that Teddy does, too. When Teddy heads off to art school, they faithfully promise to think of each other whenever they look at Vega of the Lyre.

And Teddy won't be gone for long.

But years pass, and Teddy rarely returns home to the Island. Pride, misunderstandings and distance begin to take their toll: After all, Love Was Never Technically Declared.

And, since first meeting Emily all of those years ago, Dean Priest is there, waiting in the wings, just waiting for his chance. (And for Emily to no longer be jailbait.)

If this applies to you, this is not a hypothetical question: After Emily's Quest, how is it humanly possible to still be on Team Dean?

I don't mean in comparison with Teddy: I understand that Teddy's not a particularly dynamic character, and I understand why some would take issue with him as a romantic lead. But as a person, Teddy's an okay guy. He's got his flaws, but so does Emily. And they compliment each other well, and while I might not go for him, I understand why Emily does.

DEAN, THOUGH. Now that she's an adult, I can get past the age difference. (Though I still think he's a creeper for having the hots for her when she was, like, twelve.)

But what he does to her in this book is TOTALLY WORSE than when Amy March burned Jo's manuscript, and most people generally find THAT unforgivable. (Or am I projecting?) Yes, he didn't destroy her work—she did that on her own—but he attempted to destroy her confidence, her passion, and her independence, and that's just REPREHENSIBLE.

I hated him. And I didn't forgive him. And I hoped the rest of his stupid, stupid life was lonely. Geez.

Beyond all of that, I did think that this last installment had a strange pace—lots of passages that would probably get filmed as pages ripping off of a calendar as Emily recuperates or writes or takes walks with Dean or moons out her window about Teddy—and the ending was so sudden that it wasn't as satisfying as the moment when Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe (SWOON) finally get together**. But I still prefer Emily to Anne.

I loved Montgomery's exploration of how friendships evolve as the players mature, and I loved any scene with Ilse, and the parade of Emily's unsuitable suitors was seltzer-out-the-nose funny, and my jaw dropped when I heard Teddy's Mother's Secret. I found the ending somewhat unsatisfying, but I already want to sit down and re-read the trilogy.

____________________________________________

*Get ready for italics overload.

**There's that gorgeous line about Post-Scarlet Fever Gil imagining her wearing the green dress she's working on and wearing starflowers in her hair, and he catches his breath, but forces himself to say something light and casually walk away and IT JUST KILLS ME every time.

____________________________________________

Previously:

1. Emily of New Moon
2. Emily Climbs

____________________________________________

Book source: My own copy.

Comments

[Michele]

Dean is a despicable POS. I love Emily way more than Anne, and that's saying a lot because I adore Anne. There's just something about Emily. Love love love those books.

[Lisa]

I can't comment at Kirkus, so I'm coming back to say I prefer Vicky Bliss to Amelia Peabody and Jacqueline Kirby - mostly because of John, I think.

[R. J. Anderson]

I was Team Dean not because I in any way sympathized, approved of or would even try to justify what he does to Emily in this book, but because I fiercely refused to believe that Dean would have done such a thing at all and I felt like LMM had done him (and me, the young and impressionable reader who got SO EXCITED at the thought of Emily and Dean together because I'd never believed it could actually happen, but I'd wanted it to) a terrible wrong.

Seriously, Dean's actions in this book make no sense. He's been charmed by Emily, AS Emily, for years. I cannot imagine how he could possibly be in love with her and want to marry her without being fully aware that being a writer is what she is, the essence of her very being, and that to ask her (much less FORCE her) to give up her writing would be to destroy the very qualities that drew him to her in the first place. The way he behaves in this book, it's like he's been taken over by some hideous Pod Creature.

Therefore I conclude that this is yet another case of an otherwise brilliant author succumbing to the hateful trope that The Disabled Guy Can't Have The Girl (Because His SOUL Is Crippled, Do You Get That? HIS SOUL) and that makes me want to go HULK SMASH, so I have to stop talking about it.

So I'm not really Team Dean but Team Dean-As-I-Think-He-Should-Have-Been-But-Wasn't... because being Team Teddy is totally beyond me.

I know! I ship Emily/Books. There's an OTP that will never go wrong.

[Leila]

I love Vicky, too! But when I sit around, wishing for more non-Amelia books, it's always Kirby that comes to my mind first!

[Sarah]

Yay! I'm so glad you finally got a chance to read it. I completely see what you mean regarding the pacing and you could miss the romantic resolution if you weren't reading closely enough - what a way to follow up pontifications on Quebec heaters.

For me, Mrs. Kent's character was most amazing in this book. In the other two she seems just spiteful but the development we get in this one made her leap off the page to me and I couldn't help but ache for her as I thought of her lonely life as the "mad woman in the attic" of the story.

Off to reread bits and pieces of the books again.

[MLewis]

I have been in love with Teddy since the age of eleven (I might have written him a letter or two. I was very young...). The Dean tangent in this book always, ALWAYS broke my heart, every time I read it. Though I couldn't help but feel incredibly sorry for him that moment he walks away forever, I breathed an intense and audible sigh of relief and wonder when Emily finally realizes (all psychically) that she's doing something totally untrue by being with him. I LOVE THESE BOOKS!!!

Thank you for bringing attention to them on this blog. They are so painfully overlooked.

[Leila]

@R.J.: But his dismissive attitude towards (and jealousy of) her writing totally started in the second book! (Or at least, I felt the need to vent (<--Read: Rant.) about it when I wrote about Emily Climbs.) I definitely think it amped up in this one, but it started pretty early on in their relationship. I doubt that the 11-year-old me would have picked up on it, though.

And I take your point about the Crippled Soul thing, which isn't cool. Then again, there are lots of jerks in the world, and they do come in all shapes and sizes.

Either way: Emily/Books = YES.

@Sarah: Yes, the Mrs. Kent storyline was a revelation. And it choked me up more than anything else in the book. Just BRUTAL, from every angle. And, MAN: Emily was SO HARDCORE, holding on to that knowledge for SO LONG.

[Brooke Shirts]

I was always relieved that Emily didn't end up with Dean, but man . . . I sure wanted their house. With the little cat mirror! And the candles decorated with red and black diamonds! And doesn't Emily inherit some kind of special spoon set? Anyway, 12-year-old me was torn up about it.

(Or wait. It's been a while. Does she still get the house when she marries Teddy?)

[Leila]

She totally gets to keep the house. Which rules, and is the only reason I can't completely hate Stupid Dean.

[michelle]

I love the Emily books so very much, but this book always feels like a held in scream when I read it. (If that makes sense.) As in, I spend the entire time wanting to scream at them TALK TO EACH OTHER!!! All of the them! I mean, I realize that, for the time it was written, it is totally believable that Teddy and Emily, Ilse and Perry, Teddy and Ilse, and Perry and Emily can't just have frank conversations, but what about Perry and Teddy, or Emily and Ilse?!? They are supposed to be best friends! Right?! I really needed more when they finally get together to overcome all that frustration. And I want the eight books from Emily that we got from Anne, you know?

[melizkie]

though visit often, take them out, they can't go out bring something in with you. She was on a low salt/low fat diet. Always check with the staff about their diet tintricreoss. If it has to be a wrapped up gift get them a small player of some kind, (not expensive) Be sure to engrave his name and something you can Identify in case another patient walks off with it and cheap just in case one of the employees should. Some ear phones and a find out what kind of music and books he likes. The books on tape/cd's are great, and theres all kind down loadable. But remember the best gift, you and a couple hours of your time. Merry Christmas