I tend to think of this as a placeholder Anne book - having ended the last engaged to Gilbert Blythe, the two of them are entirely separated here as Gilbert goes to medical school and Anne is teaching in a new town. They're so separated that Gilbert doesn't even appear, and the bulk of the book is Anne writing to him about the people she meets in the new town, all of whom are quirky in one way or another. Any romance is ruthlessly edited out of the letters by Montgomery, with little notes that such was excerpted, and I honestly don't know why. Well, yes I do. Montgomery was clearly more interested in the personalities around Anne, and the result is a gossipy sort of book, as Anne does these character sketches and relates the domestic dramas going on around her. Most of the people she describes are well-meaning, but some remind me inescapably of C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters and must be real horrors to live with, just a grinding level of mild and petty unpleasantness. Given Anne's sense of humour, they are mildly skewered, but still. I'll be happy to get back to Gilbert.