People Who Hate Anne With An E

I happen to be one of those unfortunate souls who has gone through childhood in a miserable state. By which I mean to say that not a single friend of mine forced me to sit down and read a little book called Anne of Green Gables. Yes, there was this one younger friend of mine who mentioned it in a sentence - my goodness it's an amazing book, it's everything, if I were to paraphrase - but since that single sentence failed to get me to actually pick up the book, I would not call it a proper recommendation. I appreciate it and do not blame her, but I do blame everyone else. Thankfully, two of my best friends who unfortunately live all the way over in Sri Lanka and London properly hyped the series to me, and here I am a couple weeks later, having binged the Netflix show Anne With An E and currently reading the first book.

While I was reading, I came upon a comment where someone expressed their distaste for the show because of how it totally changed the book and doesn't capture the essence, the goodness of Anne. And frankly, I'm quite offended. I'm sure that I have no right to be offended as it's an arguably valid opinion, but offended I am. I mean, how can someone not adore the tv show? And how the show introduced Gilbert? Comparing what I've seen so far of the show and the book, I definitely prefer how the former did it. Mostly because book Gilbert annoys all the girls in the class while tv Gilbert is perfectly mild-mannered until that day with Anne, which personally I thought was so so adorable.

Back to the comment, however, I'm not sure if they simply didn't like the darkness of the first two episodes and didn't continue watching, or if they actually watched the first and/or second seasons and still hated it. If it's the latter, I cannot comprehend. How could you not enjoy a show that takes the book, perfectly captures Anne's voice as well as that of many of the other characters, and in addition to that modernizes it by bringing in relevant topics such as racism, LGBTQ rights, and of course sexism? How can you say no to that?

And as to taking away the "goodness" of the books, personally, I feel that giving Anne larger hurdles not only brings new life into the story, but also into her character. There are trials for both Anne and Gilbert, as well as all the other characters, really, and I'm constantly amazed at how much they did with the show given this one book. I haven't finished reading it completely yet, but there are things from both seasons in this single book, and while I'm loving this version, the show did so much more with everyone in terms of emotions and stakes - I adored every moment just as I'm adoring every moment of this book.

If anyone wants to argue that any show that doesn't stick to exactly how things are in the book is a terrible show, I disagree and let's keep it at that. Personally I find shows and movies that are completely the same as the book extremely boring to suffer through, at least in the case that you've already read the book, for example, Me Before You and Everything, Everything. I'm not here to go through the same thing twice, so if that's what you're into, we simply shall not agree on the matter. 

As it is, I highly highly recommend both the book and the show to anyone who hasn't experienced Anne before (although with the show, definitely watch at least two episodes before deciding whether you want to continue watching or not). The best part is you can watch and read or read and watch back to back, because hurrah, they're both two different things that nevertheless manage to keep the same essence. I've been missing the show these past few weeks, and reading the books right now is the best feeling.