Much Ado About Anne (The Mother-Daughter Book Club #2) by Heather Vogel Frederick

★★★★½

Well, I guess it's pretty meaningful that even though I'm a slow reader, I read this book in just two days.

Once again, Isabelle loved this book and said she would give it 6 stars if possible. I definitely enjoyed this book a lot more than the first.

I liked that the Chadwicks all became more complex characters, and I loved the development of Stewart in particular.

I liked that the book revealed the different perspectives of each of the four girls. So much of one's middle school years are spent comparing your life with others', and I think this book does a really great job of showing that it's only human nature to compare, but at the same time, we should appreciate what we have, and it usually doesn't do any good to make comparisons. For example, Jess can't stand her little brothers, but Megan is an only child and thinks Jess's little brothers are cute. Emma likes having an older brother, but sometimes she wishes she can have an older sister like Cassidy's.

I love that this book makes mention of other books. Isabelle was very excited when she found out that the book club book was Anne of Green Gables, which we read together, and that Emma had read the shoe books, some of which we've read, too. This book, like the first book in the series, also does a nice job of including educational tidbits about the author of the book club book - in this case, Lucy Maud Montgomery - as well as bits of local history, this time about Henry David Thoreau and Walden Pond.

Again, all the middle school problems in this book seemed pretty spot on, but I stopped short of giving this book 5 stars because of the way the over-the-top factor ramped up towards the end. I was more forgiving this time, since it came as less of a surprise after the first book. But what I really couldn't forgive was the misspelling of the name of the author of the shoe books! The author is Noel Streatfeild, but this book spelled it Streatfield. I know it's an unusual spelling, but all the more reason why the author and the editor should have made a point to get it right!