#yapper yaps

absolutely wild that I read this over ten years ago for the first time. I am forever sorry to my 6th grade English teacher for having to read about Rilla repeatedly in my class journal (I discovered the existence of fanfiction and TBAQ that year at the same time. thus, insufferable).

also, skit lore: this book is the reason why I'm a history major and I wrote about it in multiple college application essays.

sidenote -- the spine of my copy is broken right in the middle of "and so, goodnight." who could've guessed.

ok, locking in:

this chapter is a fun little catchup if somewhat ridiculous (in the sense that I would love to know who is writing these Glen notes. Pay me to do that won't you LMAO). banger infodump. really setting Rilla up as the unambitious baby with no cares in the world

Maud's cats are all so special to me. no other author's cats stand out this strongly to me individually.

very good friends !! jem/faith and jerry/nan have no real textual backing and it is sad bc if we'd gotten more time with them in any form I would've been so much more invested. tantalizing, but not really there. I don't dislike the pairings they just kind of exist--obviously it had to be Rilla's story but WWI from any of their perspectives would've been so fascinating (Rilla is just so remarkably different from Anne it's a mood shift for me from the earlier books to this one and not only bc of WWI. RV kind of mediates it, but not really since it's the Merediths' book too. But part of Rilla's appeal to me all these years is the untold stories Rilla is not a part of.)

I would love to read more about Carl's teaching adventures. I think I would have enjoyed him as a teacher.

Una doesn't even get an actual moment in this chapter beyond being mentioned in conjunction with Rosemary and Bruce. Jerry and Faith and Carl are all off teaching or in school so I suppose the assumption is made that she's simply At Home but not a mention of what she's up to, not even being ambition-less like Rilla :(

the offsetting of this chapter from the rest of the book--the calm before the storm--what should've been a golden summer. ouch!!

every year I realize that I am x number of years older than Rilla at the beginning of the war and every time it shocks me for a second what do you mean she's 14/15 man. also when I was younger I was faintly jealous of Rilla and then I was perpetually annoyed by her and now I don't know why I thought either way. fantastic

Miss Cornelia's beef with Miller Douglas is always wild to me and I wish we'd gotten her reaction to Susan's shot. I sound like I'm talking about youtuber drama yikes. I'm sure I could say something smart about Anne's upbringing as an orphan and Mary's and Miss Cornelia's disdain of the Douglases

idk I don't think I ever really registered how bad Walter's typhoid bout must've been

Gertrude is one of those characters I remember every so often and have to pause to think about. Drawing connections to Katherine Brooke lowkey. Wish we knew more about her

"who is this archduke man that has been murdered" < classic case of 'ah a world-shattering event has occurred but whatever that was just some guy I guess'