I like the Anne books, especially Anne of the Island (the third and the one that most directly deals with the romance of Anne and Gilbert). I read them all, obviously, in order to get to Rilla, and for the most part I enjoyed Anne and her adventures. But I love Rilla and her adventures. There's a line in the first chapters that sums up why Rilla rather well: 
 "She liked Una better than Faith, whose beauty and aplomb rather overshadowed other girls -- and Rilla did not enjoy being overshadowed." 
 This isn't a book about a plucky orphan who pulls herself up out of the weeds with imagination, ingenuity, and sheer determination. Rilla is the spoiled and sheltered youngest child of a well-to-do doctor and his wife. She says early on that she has no talents, will never measure up to her clever and compassionate older siblings, and she's perfectly fine with the situation. She has no ambition to be anything beyond a well-liked pretty young thing. It's easy to admire Anne Shirley. Rilla Blythe is the type of heroine who is derided for being selfish, whiny, and most notably useless. Easy to dismiss. 
 But World War I intervenes and Rilla grows up. She doesn't fundamentally change; at the very end of the book she still doesn't want to be anything more than a handsome gentleman's pretty wife. But she is more than that now. Or rather, she always was, but now she, and the reader, knows it. I'm a huge fan of young adult fiction, historical fiction, home front romance and this book has all those. But it's that realization I want to write a love letter to. 
 I want to thank Lucy Maud Montgomery for writing more than one kind of heroine. Because I like Rilla better.